Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)
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118. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if the Naval Service will be acquiring any more vessels for the purposes of maritime security; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47128/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the Naval Service is the State's principal sea-going agency and is tasked with a variety of defence and other roles including fishery protection, contraband interdiction duties, search and rescue, and enforcing Irish and EU legislation. 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 has a nine-ship fleet with two of those ships, LÉ Eithne and LÉ Orla, currently in operational reserve. 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, with LÉ Róisín having recently returned to operations following this work and works commencing on LÉ Niamh.

The replacement of the flagship LÉ Eithne with a multi-role vessel, MRV, is an important element of the Defence Equipment Development Plan and is provided for in the Government's National Development Plan as a major capital project. It is the Government’s intention that this new vessel will provide a flexible and adaptive capability for a wide range of maritime tasks. 

Following a public tender competition, Marine Advisors have been appointed to support the procurement of the MRV. This work is now underway and will inform a public tender competition in due course.

Projects for other vessel replacements are being considered over the lifetime of the White Paper on Defence in the context of overall capability development and funding along with the overall Equipment Development Plan process.