Irish Examiner view: Time to bolster navy investment

How can drug smuggling be stopped when the Naval Service is operating with limited resources?

The MV Matthew passing Roches Point, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

The dramatic raid on the MV Matthew off the coast earlier in the week resulted in the seizure of an estimated 2.2 tonnes of cocaine which were found on board.

By any standards, this is a good day’s work for law enforcement and a serious blow to the organised crime gangs benefiting from people’s appetite for illegal drugs. There was a touch of Hollywood drama also when it came to the details of the seizure, with elite soldiers from the army ranger wing descending from an air corps helicopter on to the deck to effect the seizure.

The interception of the MV Matthew removes a huge quantity of drugs which would otherwise have hit the streets of Ireland and elsewhere, but it also raises difficult questions.

Despite the successful seizure of drugs this week, how much is getting past our patrols and into the country? 

The sheer amount of cocaine on board the MV Matthew is a reminder that, unfortunately, our naval service cannot monitor every inch of our coastline.

Which raises another awkward question: How can drug smuggling be stopped when the naval service is operating with such limited resources?

Former Irish navy commander Eugene Ryan pointed out that with previous operations, such as the Dances with Waves yacht seizure off Castletownbere, Co Cork, and the Dunlough Bay seizure, three navy ships were required for success in those operations; he said that just one ship was used this week, which is simply not enough.

The crisis in recruitment and retention across the Defence Forces is well known at this stage, and this is where that crisis has an impact beyond the organisations directly affected: it is restricting the State’s ability to police its borders, despite successes such as that this week.

This raises yet another issue: If we cannot secure and protect our own seas against ships used by drug gangs such as those using the MV Matthew, then there are implications for other states affected by the drugs being smuggled on those ships.

Working in collaboration with other states to prevent drug supply is one thing, relying on others to ensure we can adequately patrol our waters is quite another.

How do we fix the HSE?

It is a rare week that does not see some tale of taxpayers’ money being squandered, but the revelations this week about covid-19 centres in Cork and Kerry were particularly striking.

As reported here by Seán MacCartháigh, an internal audit showed agency staff hired by the HSE in Cork and Kerry for administration posts at covid-19 centres cost up to 66% more than if staff had been hired directly for the same jobs. That meant a clerical officer hired by the HSE for the Cork covid contact centre earned €13 per hour, but an agency worker earned €22.03 an hour.

The essential unfairness of this situation is shocking — one worker getting almost double the wage for doing the same job is something we associate with a long-vanished era, not a contemporary practice favoured by a large State organisation. It is baffling that the HSE is not being criticised more sharply on this score.

Perhaps that is because this revelation is compounded by what are now wearyingly familiar criticisms of the organisation and its inability to follow even basic precepts of administration. There were ‘limited assurances’ that payment of administrative staff was in line with the HSE’s own National Financial Regulations, for instance. In addition, there was no framework agreement for administrative staff provided by agencies.

The fact that this particular story is covid-related will bolster calls for a full inquiry into the State’s performance across all arms and agencies in that period. Such an inquiry would by definition need to be wide-ranging in its scope.

Perhaps those eventually appointed to steer such an inquiry could be moved to tackle another difficult matter when they conclude their deliberations on covid-19: How do we fix the HSE?

Plot twist

Members of the Writers Guild of America picketing outside Paramount Pictures. Picture: Ashley Landis/AP

At first glance, the end of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike looks like a news item of remote significance to most of us. Yet there are implications to this dispute which go far beyond the mild inconvenience of having to wait an extra few months for one’s favourite television series to resume.

Writer royalties from streaming services formed a key part of the dispute, for instance. The ownership of intellectual property which is transmitted on different platforms is an issue which should concern everyone. The ability to monetise free online contributions, for instance, is the magic trick which made X, formerly Twitter, so attractive for many years. 

The looming shadow of artificial intelligence (AI) is another complicating factor, with the WGA insisting on protective measures for its members against AI on future productions. That insistence may have to be replicated in the near future as the use of AI becomes more and more prevalent. There is already uproar among authors whose works have been used without their permission to train generative AI tools, for instance.

In time to come, the WGA template of AI-specific protections will have to be emulated in many other areas.