3 New Navy Vessels for Irish Naval Service

Nobody wants to consider the elephant in the room of course, a massively strengthened Reserve and/or some sort of compulsory military service.

If this conversation continues to be about pay, pretty soon it will be concluded that the unpalatable truth is that they'll have to pay technical NCOs the same as a commissioned Sub-Lieutenant or higher to be able to compete with the entry level in the high tech private sector.

If you talk to anyone in the navy and ask them what could be done to make things better I bet everyone would more or less say the same thing.

Why isn’t the Minister listening?

It is in the public service lads.

And that's the culture under which this crisis is being addressed.

The minister, DoD and DPER have been given numerous solutions from the rep groups within the DF and even Naval HQ how to solve the most pressing issue- retention. They can be solved by something as simple as making MSA part of core pay, and making PDA tax free.

Their suggestions are largely ignored.

There is also a multitude of skilled ex NS officers and Senior rates who would be happy to return to the NS to assist, but because of pension abatement, to do so would effectively see them doing it for free.

What is the role of a warrant officer in the Navy?

When I say Senior rates, I include POs. There used to be a PO/RRT on every ship, a ship couldn't leave port without them. Now there's none. Same for PO/ERA and PO/EA. As for chiefs, a CPO ERA has the same qualification as an Engineering officer, and in a future orbat(IPV for example), could easily fulfil the MEO role. You also need POs to supervise training of recruits and officer cadets.

I never mentioned deck officers. Its technical officers that are needed. They are the ones who we are taking in, training up and they leave a year or so after being commissioned, bringing their engineers ticket off somewhere where they'll earn a bucket more money, and never have to go to sea. The Air Corps has taken back captains, commandants and colonels who were flight qualified. Why can't the Navy do the same?

At the end of the day there wouldn’t be a retention crisis if the Fine Gael government actually implemented better sea pay and improved the contracts.

Instead they did very little And choose to put the money into useless ad campaigns and focused on recruitment.

The civil servants who work in the department are also to blame. Try doing a 4 week patrol out in rough conditions. At least you get to go home when you work in the private sector.

I hear some of their more qualified people cross the pond to Aus because there is more interesting potential there. I.E NZ have Canterbury, Oz have Choules and the Canberra class. Oz have a reach beyond the pacific, NZ rarely venture beyond their own patch.

The Chinese activity in the Solomons has woken the NZ military up somewhat, however their current govt is taking the "wait & see" approach. Meanwhile NZ has plans to replace Canterbury with a proper LPD, among other things.

At the start it was considered "the best they could get" given the then governments lack of intent for any other military capability. But once people started to die, the attitude changed. It did well in the HADR role, that goes without saying, but it was clear that a proper LPD would do the job and others far better, for a similar cost. Based on the recent very public visits by the NS and DoD to the Dutch naval platforms, it appears Ireland has come round to that way of thinking too.

As an aside, the Dutch navy plan to replace their 2 LPD and 4 OPV with 6 "crossover" types.

Crossovers - Damen

Big difference in size and structure between an LPD and an OPV.

Could end up with the bastard child of uselessness, or HMNZS Canterbury if you prefer.

Put the Irish MRV order on the dutch one and we could get a saving

"....Mr Coveney is believed to favour that at least one of the warships be named after a woman."

Careful now Simon, we could end up with the L.E. Amanda Brunker!

Ah now, Amy has a useful Husband and used to be a pretty reasonable actor herself. I have no idea what purpose vague serves though.

LE. KATIE TAYLOR