Defence Forces
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-07
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

We have set targets for 2028 and meeting them is going to be a challenge. I will not say otherwise. However, I believe that the higher the targets we set ourselves, the quicker we will reach them and the more we do to encourage and support more people to apply and also to retain our overall numbers, the quicker we will reach those establishment figures.
In terms of the Naval Service, this year the figure has gone up again. It is now at 833. With an establishment figure of 1,094, however, there is obviously still work to be done. The overall figures show that of the 7,000 people who applied in the first three months of this year, 23% applied to the Naval Service. If 23% of 7,000 applicants in the first three months were applying to the navy, we are clearly starting to see the numbers increase, which is really positive.
That is down to the fact that now, for the first time ever, we have a national maritime security strategy and are very clearly focused on how we can invest in the navy, its ships, fleet and personnel. We are now developing new equipment the Naval Service will use on our fleet. As part of the advancement of the new military radar programme, we will see new radar capability on our ships this year. In addition, the Naval Service will also deploy sonar equipment.
We are focused on our Naval Service. We are going to invest in it and we are talking about how good it is. It does a huge amount of work. On a 24-7 basis, seven days a week, 100% of our exclusive economic zones, EEZs, are monitored. Of the eight vessels we have, four are out on rotation at any given time, as are two helicopters. Due to that and the support we have from the Air Corps, our EEZs are monitored all of the time.
To Deputy Smith's comment, it is when things do not happen that we tend to talk about them but the fact is we have had successful monitoring, we are able to respond to challenges and we are working closely with other countries. We need to highlight that more. My ambition is obviously to be as ambitious as we can be but also to highlight what the Naval Service is doing and how important it is to us, and to encourage more people to join the navy because we want to grow it and we have more work to do.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-07