With a fleet including several Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV), the Naval Service has only been able to put one such ship into operational duty for the past month due to a combination of mechanical issues and a lack of specialist crew.

According to the Irish Examiner, it has also learned that the personnel shortage include expert technicians which has in part, delayed the deployment of two former Royal New Zealand inshore patrol vessels (IPV), costing €26m, which arrived to Cork Harbour as deck-cargo on board a heavy-lift ship from New Zealand last May. The ‘Lake’ class patrol cutters are unlikely to become operational until this winter.

The ongoing crewing crisis, despite following a recruitment campaign of recent months, has meant that no decision has yet been made on whether an OPV will again be deployed this summer for the EU’s IRINI mission in the Mediterranean Sea. The overseas deployment mission is aimed to enforce an oil export embargo from Libya and prevent gun-running activities into the same north African country.

Queries from newspaper on the availability of just one OPV to patrol one million square kilometres of the Republic’s Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ) was responded by the Defence Forces which said it "does not give specifics on operational units nor their movements, for operational security reasons".

"The Defence Forces also does not offer comment on personnel movements, for similar reasons," it said. The newspaper understands that the one ship which was involved on patrolling, was only able to maintain such a role, by swapping a crew from a second vessel which too  hasn’t been operational.

More here on the newspaper's story and for Afloat’s coverage last week, of the Wärtsilä five-year maintenance contract with the Naval Service, which will fill the void caused by the shortage of the navy's own specialists.

Afloat.ie has since confirmed with the Naval Service, that the contract with Wärtsilä, not surpringly applies to the more modern OPV's in the fleet, the quartet of the P60 class, among them L.E. James Joyce (P62) as seen above at Dun Laoghaire Harbour last month.

The OPV would later that month return to Dublin Bay but call to the capital and then depart on 24th January for further patrol.