New naval ship is delayed by broken gearbox

Plans to take early delivery of the latest Naval Service patrol ship have received a setback following damage to a gearbox during sea trials off the English coast.

The LE Niamh was due to arrive in Cork harbour early this week. However, it lost the use of one engine when a pinion shaft in the main gearbox sheared during the trials. The 79-metre ship, which was built as a sister vessel to the LE Roisin at a cost of more than £20 million, is not expected to arrive in Irish waters for another six to eight weeks.

The LE Roisin was the first vessel built at Appledore Shipyard in Devon under the Government's re-equipment programme for the Defence Forces. It experienced a setback after its delivery when its bilge keels had to be replaced early last year.

The vessels were also the subject of controversy over the lack of a gun, given that both are financed by the EU for fisheries protection. To overcome the restriction, funding for armaments for both vessels has come from the Exchequer - although the Department of Defence had suggested using the veteran Bofors gun from the LE Deirdre for the Niamh.

The 30-year-old Deirdre, which was involved in intercepting the gun-running Claudia in 1973 and in the Fastnet race rescue of 1979, is due to be auctioned on June 14th. A ceremony to mark its decommissioning - almost a year before its "sell by date" - had to be cancelled due to the foot-and-mouth crisis.

In a separate development, the Naval Service has confirmed that it has taken delivery of calibrated gauges for measuring net mesh size on passive fishing gear. This follows criticism last week by the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation that the service was penalising Irish fishing vessels unduly and ignoring the activities of foreign-registered vessels.

The organisation said that large areas of up to 20 square miles off the coastline were being closed off by foreign vessels, using under-size mesh in gillnets. Yet these activities were being ignored by the Naval Service, it said - pointing to the fact that 14 of 17 detentions so far this year have been of Irish vessels.

The Naval Service said it was not focusing unduly on Irish fishermen, but confirmed that there had been a delay in receiving new mesh gauges, approved to EU standards, which had been ordered by the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources. This limited its capability to detain other vessels for alleged breaches of fishing regulations.