3 New Navy Vessels for Irish Naval Service

Won't somebody please think of the children?"

Jesus but that's a dumb take by the Times.

A) We've been hearing for the last 16 months that Russian ships and Chinese ships and any ship can freely transit the EEZ as it is NOT territorial waters. Why would the yanks be any different?

B) Are they trying to tell us that Defence "sources" are having a problem with a ship that the DFA and God knows many other agencies in fact CLEARED TO OPERATE OUT OF CORK HARBOUR??!!

C) They know full well the Government have all but admitted outright that we will need help to protect undersea infrastructure and that we will be cooperating with the EU and NATO Countries and Militaries on precisely that!! I mean feckin hell, if they think an auxiliary survey ship like Virginia Ann is bad, wait'll they hear about the CBGs and the Virginia-Class nuclear attack submarines that are all out there too!!

Dumb, misinformed handwringing and pearl clutching and whatever sub-editor passed it for publication should be mortified.

Nothing I have seen in recent years in the media and have personal knowledge of has even vaguely resemblance to the truth, the media won't let the truth get in the way of what they want to portray

Kicked to touch basically.

Given it’s history of “protracted” procurement I’m firmly on a “assume the worst” position, I’ll be happily surprised if/when an order happens but I’m not holding my breath. Given what it might be I wouldn’t think yard space will be the crunch tbh, hell if we wanted o we could go outside EU and get South Korea to build it fast and cheap. Hell Japan are now offering a “MRV” type that includes RAS capability. There’s not really anything in what we want that is a showstopper in procurement, just the utter lack of willingness to invest in the NS.

In other news, I see Denmark (not hugely different to us in population/economy), as part of their significant ramp up of spending is considering regenerating their Submarine capability…

Any chance that underwater R.O.V. Interoperability will be more of a thing , for the new multirole vessel , ?

With increased surveillance/ inspection of pipelines and cables a current issue , ?

I still think a multirole oil field services style vessel would probably suit well ,

Built for rough conditions , able to hold station well for divers or rovs , plenty of carrying capacity, emergency towing capacity, and what ever roles could you fit in standard shipping containers , for carrying people ,electronics or vehicles .

might not look look very "navy " though ..

Nope,

But little point in announcing you are building a ship in a climate where you are unable to crew 4 others.

It's not dead, it's just moving at a glacial pace. Lead time is about 5 years, we need to see a reverse of current manning trends before we sign the dotted line.

The forthcoming deployment to Op Irini with EUFOR is a good start, but govt needs to make urgent positive decisions, if it wishes to see a functioning Naval Service by the time the next election looms. We were here, sort of, before, in 1971. Then we had crew but no ships. The lone Irish Naval presence at sea was an officer aboard a fisheries research vessel, armed with a revolver. Within 12 months we had 4 ships at sea. Within 5 years we had 7 ships (2 leased) with 2 more being built, and plans for a helicopter carrying vessel. The MRV is a long term project, its not just a navy one. The 3 arms of the DF want to see it happen.

Funding is not the issue, we already renewed the contract for the consultants. We could have drawn a line under it when their engagement lapsed before christmas.

Unfortunately we are approaching the situation where nobody on the original concept team will be serving in the NS by the time contracts are signed. Its potential captain has not had their first command yet.

If it’s a combination of waiting till current trends reverse and a lead time of 5 years, then yeah I’m going with kicked to touch, happy to be proved wrong but no faith left in the process after everything.

The reporting in the papers is saying this deployment has being taken very well by the naval personal and is for alot of the sailors there first time overseas.

Hopefully this will be a good success and a good retenation tool for the crews and will encourage them to stay for longer in the Navy.

Id say boarding a ship in the med will be a piece of p@ss for the crews compared to boarding a ship a couple 100kms of the west coast in the middle of winter

And how long did it take from identifying the need for replacement to actually ordering something, let alone the fact that all that procurement has basically been racing to stand still? Not too mention that at least some of those purchases are years later than originally planned. The MRV is meant to be in the pre Report Capital Plan, it could have been an easy example of actually putting money where mouths are had it been ordered last year and been used as something of a Retention/Recruitment tool, and again for what it is has any naval procurement spent so long since originally started and still not even got a contract? Its not a first of its kind cutting edge design, it really shouldn't be this hard or take this long.

Was last years increase above the rate of inflation? Will this years? At least one of those Ministers wasn't pushed enough to try and get anywhere last administration for example, so with all the other demands on Finance, I'm not holding out much hope for any significant jump this year.

Like I said, I will love to be wrong, but over 15 years of nothing but "its coming" makes me think otherwise.

If it is related to FDI then the MRV isn’t the answer either, something like the new RFA hull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFA_Proteus would be the way to go, either way the timeline is closing fairly sharpish for going through the procurement process given how long we take.

So what are the roles of an MRV ?

Cos that looks pretty damn multirole to me ..

I know of some beardy lads who also see it as an opportunity for some of the stuff they do and future capabilities...

It certainly could.

On that note, all the best to the Yeats and her fine crew on their landmark mission. May they have fair winds and following seas and not come home with too enviable a suntan!

If we had the MRV when intended the Med could have kept her permanently deployed for years at this stage, or Op Altantia. Either would have been a major tool for retention/experience/training with Allies…