Significant rise in Air Corps' emergency airlifts  

Our Naval Service, which celebrated 75 years from its foundation in 2021, has the task of patrolling 220 million maritime acres of sea, representing 15% of European fisheries.

There has been a significant increase in emergency medical transports provided by the Air Corps in the last two years, according to the Defence Forces.

While battling an ongoing recruitment and retention crisis, the organisation also delivered more operations in support of gardaí this year - such as cash and prisoner escorts and bomb call outs - and deployed six computer response teams to help save and restore HSE computer systems following the May cyber attack.

But fisheries patrols decreased further in 2021, on what was the 75th anniversary of the Naval Service.

This follows warnings, including last month from naval commanders, that the Navy is struggling to carry out its duties, not least because of a 25% fall in its strength since 1998.

The Irish Defence Forces Year in Review 2021 (as of December 16) shows:

*Army conducted over 158 ‘Aid to the Civil Power’ operations in support of An Garda Síochána involving Explosive Ordnance Disposal (Bomb Squad) call outs, Prisoner Escorts, Explosive Escorts, major Cash Escorts and Search Operations – compared to 133 in 2020 and 195 in 2019;

*Naval Service has conducted 269 fisheries boardings in 2021 (with nine detentions) in 2021 – compared to 307 boardings (16 detentions) in 2020 and 780 boardings (12 detentions) in 2019;

*Air Corps responded to 393 Emergency Aeromedical Services (EAS) missions supporting the National Ambulance Service in providing a medical service for seriously ill patients – compared to 344 in 2020 and 233 in 2019;

*Air Corps also conducted in excess of 60 inter-hospital Air Ambulance tasks both nationally and internationally to the UK and mainland Europe – compared to 45 in 2020 and 32 in 2019;

*Air Corps conducted 149 Maritime Surveillance Patrol flights – compared to 140 in 2020 and 130 in 2019 

The review said that in May, the HSE was subjected “to a large-scale cyber attack by criminal elements outside the state”.

It said the Defence Forces deployed six Computer Incident Response Teams (CIRT) nationally to support the HSE and contractors in the restoration of HSE IT systems and between May and July provided a total of 837 man-days to this effort.

The Defence Forces assisted in dealing with forest fires in Dublin, Wicklow and Kerry, specialist 4X4 transport capability for emergency services personnel in Cork, along with flood defence preparations in Cork during Storm Barra.

The Air Corps provided aerial fire-fighting across a number of counties, dropping over 337,750 litres of water to protect property.

The review said the Naval Service, which celebrated 75 years from its foundation in 2021, has the task of patrolling 220 million maritime acres of sea (12 times that of Ireland) representing 15% of Europe’s fisheries.

The Naval Service Dive Section (NSDS) was deployed to 20 operations in 2021, similar to last year. It was involved in one Search and Recovery operation following a request from the Coast Guard. 

The review mentions the deployment of Special Forces personnel from the Army Ranger Wing to Kabul, Afghanistan, to ensure the safe passage of Irish nationals and their families.

An ARW Task Unit is also serving as part of a UN mission in Mali, as part of the German-led Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force in the east of the country.