Taxpayer picking up €13m bill for outsourcing maintenance of navy ships

The Department of Defence has refused, at present, to reveal how much it is paying the Finnish company to get all P60 ships operational. Picture: David Creedon / Anzenberger

It is costing the taxpayer nearly four times as much employing a company to get stricken naval ships back on patrol than it would have if Naval Service engineering experts had not quit for better pay and conditions in the private sector.

The Irish Examiner understands more than €13m is being paid to Finnish-owned company Wärtsilä for a five-year contract to maintain the Naval Service's four newest P60 class ships — LÉ Samuel Beckett, LÉ James Joyce, LÉ William Butler Yeats and LÉ George Bernard Shaw.