Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am responding on behalf of the Minister for Defence and Foreign Affairs who cannot be present due to other commitments. On his behalf, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the Senator on the topic he has raised.The Naval Service is the principal sea-going agency of the State and is charged with maritime defence, fishery protection, contraband interdiction duties, search and rescue, and enforcing Irish and EU legislation, as appropriate. The Irish economic zone currently extends to 132,000 square miles. This area is approximately five times the size of Ireland, and amounts to approximately 16% of all EU waters.

The Naval Service currently has a nine-ship fleet with two of those ships, the LÉ Eithneand LÉ Orla, in operational reserve. The Government has acknowledged the recruitment and retention issues that are currently impacting on Naval Service operations and the availability of operational ships and also the impact on fishery patrol days, which is a situation that is being managed carefully. The Minister's focus is on returning the Naval Service to its full capacity.

The White Paper on Defence sets out an ambitious programme of capital investment in the Naval Service, including the mid-life refit and upgrade of the P50 class of vessels, the LÉ Róisínand LÉ Niamh, as well as the replacement of the flagship Naval Service vessel, the LÉ Eithne, with a multirole vessel, and, subsequently, the LÉ Ciaraand LÉ Orla. The P50 mid-life upgrade programme is well under way, with the recent return to operations of the LÉ Róisínand work is commencing on the LÉ Niamh project.

The multirole vessel project is an important developmental project and indicative of the Government's commitment to ongoing investment and development of defence capabilities. The project is included in the national development plan as a major capital project and is an important element of the defence equipment development plan. A joint civil-military project team has been appointed to manage this project. Work to date has focused on the pretender concept of operations stage and preparing a detailed specification of capability requirements for a tender competition. In addition, a competition is under way to appoint a marine adviser to support the procurement of a multirole vessel. This process should be finalised within the coming weeks. It is the intention that the new vessel will be able to contribute across a number of defence roles, with a design specification capable of providing a flexible and adaptive capacity for a wide range of tasks, both at home and overseas. It is planned that it will be enabled for helicopter operations and will have a freight-carrying capacity.

It is intended to hold a public tender competition in due course to cover the supply of the multirole vessel, subject to availability of funding within the overall defence capital funding envelope. As this project is at pretender stage, the Senator will appreciate that it would be inappropriate to comment further on the design and capabilities of the ship.

With regard to the European Commission's assessment that Ireland's fisheries protection capabilities are "unsatisfactory", while it is acknowledged that there is room for improvement in respect of Ireland's sea fisheries protection, the Minister is satisfied that the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and Naval Service continue to actively engage with the Commission and EU partners on matters related to the Common Fisheries Policy. During 2020, the Naval Service carried out 781 fishery patrol days. Up to 31 May 2021, the Naval Service had carried out 338 fishery patrol days.