Naval Service
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-07
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Helen McEntee (FG), Meath East

In relation to our ships, at any given time, something might arise resulting in a ship requiring unscheduled maintenance but, the vast majority of the time, it is a case of scheduled maintenance. Ships come to a certain point in their lifetime and go in for scheduled maintenance. It obviously takes some time to go through that process. That is why the ships operate on a rotation. The LÉ Aoibhinn is a new ship that we hope to be ready and commissioned in the third quarter of this year. Again, it is about making sure that scheduled maintenance happens as it is supposed to. Where issues arise and ships need to be taken in for maintenance as the result of unforeseen circumstances, we obviously need to respond as quickly as possible. I again stress that the physical presence of our navy ships is complemented by intelligence-gathering carried out by naval operations 24-7, 365 days a year, at the command centre in Haulbowline. That involves remote monitoring. In addition, Air Corps aircraft are equipped with state-of-the-art communications and surveillance equipment. To the Deputy's point, these work very closely with An Garda Síochána, Revenue and customs. We recently saw a massive drugs haul involving the MV Matthew . That was the result of all of our agencies working together with all of the resources we have.

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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