Mr Guinan maintained the Defence Forces continued to experience serious staff-retention problems.
âThe Naval Service now has a strength figure of just over 800. Given numbers in training, the numbers of non-seagoing appointments across both the commissioned and enlisted ranks and the numbers of personnel who have completed their sea/shore rotation, the numbers of personnel actually available to go to sea is extremely limited. PDforra has, for years, advised our department, military management and public representatives that there was no elasticity in the system should a crisis arise. The net result is the inability of State ships to go to sea. In some instances vessels worth tens of millions of euro are idle for the lack of appropriately trained staff,â he said.