The Defence Forces will be forced to spend almost €250,000 hiring external contractors to service its naval weapons due to a lack of trained personnel.
Earlier this year, The Irish Times reported that the Naval Service was forced to send vessels to sea without working armaments due to a severe shortage of technicians.
At the time, the Naval Service’s ordnance section was down to a single technician following a mass exodus of highly trained staff over the previous year.
Those difficulties have persisted and the Naval Service still does not have enough trained personnel, known as weapons artificers, to maintain its ships’ main armament, the 76mm deck-mounted cannon.
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Naval authorities have also struggled to maintain ships’ secondary armaments, the 20mm autocannon.
The shortages have coincided with increasing pressure on the Naval Service to respond to an increasing number of suspicious ships in Irish-controlled waters, which are believed to be used by Russia to skirt international sanctions.
Military authorities have now advertised for private contractors to maintain naval weapons at an estimated cost of up to €230,000, plus VAT. It is estimated that private contractors will be needed for up to the next three years until enough Naval Service personnel can be trained to take over the roles again.
The private contractors are needed to address “a short-term lack in skilled armament artificers”, according to a request for tender published by the Defence Forces last week.
The contractors will work at the naval base in Haulbowline, Co Cork, daily, to complete planned and unplanned maintenance activities. This maintenance will be on a request basis by the ships’ staff.
External personnel are needed “whilst current trainees are undergoing technical and academic training”, the document states.
Up to five contractors will be hired. The specific nature of the training requirements means it is likely that some or all the contractors will be former Naval Service technicians who left for the private sector.
However, former Defence Forces personnel who departed less than six months previously will not be eligible. They will be hired back on significantly more money than they earned while in the Naval Service, sources said.
As well as maintaining vessels docked at base, the technicians will also be required to travel to vessels on patrol at sea if they have a weapons system fault.
Several ships have been forced to go on patrol without working weapons, sources said.
Naval technicians formally raised concerns about the future of weapons systems in 2024, in a signed letter to senior officers. The letter stated the ordnance unit would soon become functionally non-operational.
The Naval Service has already contracted other aspects of vital ship maintenance to a handful of Irish marine companies.
In recent years, a shortage of personnel has led the Naval Service to drastically reduce the number of patrols it conducts.
However, following increases in pay and allowances, personnel numbers have started to stabilise and the number of patrols is expected to increase this year.
Recruitment is expected to reach about 160 this year, up 60 per cent on last year’s figures.
