The Government has decided to formally decommission three Naval Service vessels – one-third of the fleet – in the months ahead.
The vessels, the LÉ Orla, LÉ Ciara and the Naval Service flagship LÉ Eithne, have been tied up for several years due to the lack of sailors to crew them.
Various options are being considered by officials for the disposal of the vessels, which are between 34 and 38 years old. One option under consideration is gifting them free of charge to a friendly nation. Another is to sell them.
Both options carry potential political pitfalls. In 2015, the Naval Service offshore patrol vessel, the LÉ Aoife, was donated to the Armed Forces of Malta, despite concerns expressed by Maltese sailors about its condition. It remains in service there.
In 2016, the 42-year-old LÉ Aisling was decommissioned and sold to a Dutch company for €110,000. The company sold it on a year later for €473,000 to a company in the United Arab Emirates, which almost immediately sold it to a company in Libya for €1.3 million.
It was then transferred to one of the participants in the civil war in Libya, in breach of a UN arms embargo, where it was rearmed and renamed Al-Karama.
The Department of Defence later said it had no "trailing obligations" in relation to the vessel.
Refurbishment needed
The age of the Eithne, Orla and Ciara means the department may opt to simply sell them for scrap, military sources said, although all three are believed to be seaworthy, or could be made seaworthy with a reasonable amount of refurbishment.
The decommissioning of the Eithne, Orla and Ciara will represent the biggest single change to the Naval Service fleet for many years.
A date has yet to be set for the decommissioning. A department spokeswoman said the three vessels “are now at end of life”.
She said Minister for Defence Simon Coveney "has made a decision to dispose of these three vessels. The process to dispose of Naval Service vessels is the subject of ongoing deliberations."
The decommissioning is likely to mean the Naval Service will become, for a time at least, a six-ship navy. The Government has agreed to purchase two decommissioned inshore patrol vessels from the New Zealand navy for €26 million.
The vessels, which require far fewer sailors compared to the outgoing ones, will be used for fisheries patrols in the Irish Sea. However, they are not due for delivery until 2023.
Before they can be transferred to Ireland, they require a significant refit by the New Zealand navy costing between €10 and €12 million.
Staff shortage
A replacement is also planned for the Eithne in the form of a multipurpose vessel costing up to €200 million. The Government has said the process will take between four and six years to complete.
The Naval Service is currently severely understaffed, resulting in the cancellation of multiple maritime patrols in recent years.
The Representative Association for Commissioned Officers (Raco) said the outgoing ships “have given excellent service and have exceeded their service life” but that in the last two years have proved to be “little more than a drain on scarce maintenance and security resources”.
Sec Gen Comdt Conor King said it was now time "to dispose of these vessels to free up resources to better support the remaining ships and to prepare for the entry into service of the new vessels.
“In the meantime, there is a huge amount of work to be done to retain our naval personnel, and build on our depleted strength with fresh blood if the Navy is ever to be in a position to crew its fleet.”
The recent Commission on the Defence Forces report recommended a significant expansion and modernisation of the Naval Service, which it said should be renamed the Irish Navy.
Among the proposals was the operation of a 12-ship navy which could “provide the Naval Service with maritime capabilities for defending the State from a conventional military attack”.
