The Government is to gift one of its Naval Service ships to the Maltese to help them cope with the ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean and is planning to deploy Irish ships on an EU anti-piracy missions off Somalia.

Defence Minister Simon Coveney is examining proposals to send Irish troops to the Indian Ocean to battle piracy as part of plans to expand peacekeeping missions abroad.

The US Navy is launching an investigation into how a nuclear-powered submarine hit a Japanese merchant ship near the busy shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz.