Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have two ships in reserve and one ship in a midlife refit, which takes a period of time. There are essentially six ships operational in our fleet at the moment. The two ships in reserve can be deployed if there is an emergency. Due to the fact that there are challenges in respect of the numbers in the Naval Service, we are focused on operating six ships safely with full crews. I am not willing to compromise on safety standards by under-crewing ships to try to get more ships out.

The two ships in reserve are ships that are close to 40 years old at this stage. We are now considering how we can get our fleet back up to eight or nine and how we can replace some of the ships that need to be retired from the fleet. That has to happen in parallel with getting the numbers back up again.

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