Naval Service
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-09
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John Connolly (FF), Galway West

One of the things I have often found puzzling is that the very proud and historical tradition of maritime and naval participation that a location like Galway has among its citizens seems to have petered out in recent times.
The operation of a naval support base or naval infrastructure along the west coast in Galway would encourage more local people, potentially, to join the Naval Service or the Naval Reserve. That is noted by the Commission on the Defence Forces as well.
To bring it on then to our national maritime strategy, one of the initial action points for the first strategy is to "Explore concept of a forward operating base on the West Coast base for the Naval Service". Everything in these studies is pointing towards the need for the west coast to be serviced by a naval base. Galway would make great sense - eminent sense, in fact - for that because it would be complemented, obviously, by the Army base at Renmore and it also has the natural infrastructure to facilitate such a development. I ask, therefore, that we start to develop the maritime strategy and that point in particular.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09