Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Those two new vessels are further evidence of the Government's commitment to investment in the Naval Service and in capacity and capability more generally across the Defence Forces. The C295s that have been ordered, one of which has come in, give a far greater maritime surveillance capacity to the Air Corps as well as a potential strategic airlift capacity. The investments are in train.

The Chief of Staff, working with the flag officer, is working on operational maximisation of the existing staff in terms of deployment. That work is under way. That is one element to it. The other, of course, is recruitment and retention initiatives.

A significant number of measures have been taken but they are not yet impacting to the degree that I would like on recruitment numbers. There has been some improvement but not at the level that we require.

I have also asked for a radical look at how we recruit the specialists that are required in the engine room and in terms of the technical and technological skills that are required to enable ships to go to sea. That has been an issue, in terms of both recruitment and retention, which has been examined.

Until those issues improve, we are not in a position to be precise in terms of how many vessels we can deploy with confidence. There is an issue around the operational optimisation of our existing staff to see what we can do to put ships out at sea.