Naval vessels likely to be scrapped to avoid repeat of embarrassments

It will be the Department of Defence, not the Naval Service, which will decide what happens to the LÉ Eithne. Picture: Dan Linehan

Three Naval Service ships due to be decommissioned shortly are likely to be sold for scrap metal, rather than auctioned off, it has emerged.

That is to avoid a repeat of the diplomatic embarrassment caused when the last one sold ended up in a warlords’ hands while another ‘gifted’ to a country was described by some of its ex-navy bosses as a piece of junk.

It will be the Department of Defence, not the Naval Service, which will decide what happens to mothballed flagship LÉ Eithne and the aging two inshore patrol boats LÉ Orla and LÉ Ciara, which are also tied up.

Military sources say there is little money to be made from auctioning off the old ships and if they are to be auctioned there’s no guarantee where they will end up.

Warlord owner

In 2017 the Department of Defence sold LÉ Aisling at auction for the knockdown price of €110,000 to a Dutch shipping broker. The price included €16,000 worth of fuel onboard.

The following year it was sold on to a company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which promptly resold it to a Libyan company for the princely sum of €1.3m.

Naval Service personnel later recognised their old ship on social media posts. She had been renamed Al Karama (Dignity) and it was now in the hands of self-proclaimed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, a warlord who is still fighting for control of Libya.

Prior to actioning off the vessel, the Naval Service had removed all its weaponry, especially its forward 40mm Bofors cannon and specialist equipment. However, within weeks of it arriving in in Benghazi, Haftar’s forces had rearmed it.

It had been sold by the UAE company to Haftar’s forces, in breach of a UN arms embargo on Libya.

Though there was absolutely no blame attributable to Ireland, the fact the vessel ended up in the warlord’s hands was seen as an embarrassment.

The Department of Defence was criticised for letting the vessel go so cheaply. It got almost three times as much in 2014 for LÉ Emer and got €240,000 for LÉ Deirdre in 2001.

'Gift' backfires

Another embarrassing episode occurred in 2015 when the government decided to ‘gift’ the decommissioned LÉ Aoife to Malta.

This was primarily to help Malta rescue migrants who at the time were making crossings  of the Mediterranean Sea in 'deathtrap' dinghies and fishing vessels in huge numbers from North Africa, in an attempt to seek a better life in Europe.

The Naval Service itself was involved in the crisis, sending several vessels to the area and saving more than 18,000 lives.

It seemed a logical thing at the time to gift the Maltese a ship, but it backfired badly.

Former navy officers from Armed Forces Malta (AFM) described the LÉ Aoife as “past its sell-by date” and said accepting it would allow “other junk to be dumped” at their base in Valletta harbour.