The Naval Service is set to outsource the vast majority of ship maintenance to civilian contractors, the latest in a series of moves to privatise what were once core capabilities of the Defence Forces.
The contract for a “strategic maintenance partner” is expected to be worth many millions of euro. It will mean civilian contractors from a big naval company, most likely from outside Ireland, will carry out almost all maintenance and repairs of ships.
Until now, maintenance work has been conducted by Naval Service members, sometimes with the assistance of external contractors hired on short-term contracts.
However, a lack of trained technicians has meant vessels have sometimes had to operate without fully functional systems. This includes ships being deployed without functional guns due to a lack of weapons technicians.
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Under the proposed system, a single company would take over all the onshore maintenance of vessels, including engines and navigation, electrical, radar and weapon systems.
The move is in effect an admission by military authorities that they are no longer able to rely on Defence Forces members to maintain vessels, at least in the short to medium term, due to a lack of personnel.
Military management have been pushing for a permanent solution to naval maintenance issues for some time.
Other military capabilities outsourced to the private sector in recent years include training of Air Corps and army ordnance personnel and the hiring of civilian air traffic controllers.
This week, the Air Corps sought a private company to assist in interviewing and selecting pilots.
The Naval Service only has enough personnel to operate half of its eight-ship fleet. This is despite a stabilisation in the numbers leaving the Naval Service in the last year and an increase in applications.
Last year 162 people joined the Naval Service, including 24 “direct entry specialist inductions”, the Department of Defence said. During that time 47 personnel left.
Given the lengthy training period required for naval technicians, military authorities believe this rate of increase is far too slow to get the service back to a full operational state in a reasonable time frame.
Senior officers are under pressure to get additional ships to sea as soon as possible to monitor subsea cables for potential sabotage and to track vessels from the so-called Russian shadow fleet, which regularly transits through Ireland’s economic waters.
The contracting of a “strategic maintenance partner” will form part of a naval regeneration plan being developed by the military at the request of Government.
The Department of Defence declined to answer questions about how long the contract will run for or its cost.
It said the regeneration plan would be submitted to Minister for Defence Helen McEntee shortly and “will include consideration of strategic maintenance requirements for the Naval Service”.
“Until such a time as the regeneration plan has been received and considered by the Minister, it is premature to speculate,” a spokesman said.
It is understood a number of big military contractors, including UK-based Babcock International, have already expressed interest in bidding.
Babcock provides a similar service to the UK’s Royal Navy.
Since 2024, the money spent on naval maintenance has increased by almost a third, mostly due to the increasing need to hire external contractors. Last year the cost was €21.5 million.
Retired Naval Service commander Caoimhín Mac Unfraidh said the hiring of a single strategic maintenance partner would be welcomed by the organisation and mirrored how other navies operated.
Naval technicians must keep a vast range of highly technical systems in operation, he said. “They are really stretched in maintaining these assets and keeping them ready to go back to sea,” Mac Unfraidh said.
However, he said it would be a mistake to allow the hiring of an external company to replace the training of in-house technicians.
“The key word is partner. If as a cost-cutting measure, somebody attempts to reduce the organic capability of the Navy, that’s where there’s danger,” he said.
