Twin patrol cutters purchased from New Zealand at a cost of €26m will finally be commissioned by the Naval Service on (Wednesday, September 4th), nearly 16 months after the pair arrived on a heavy-lift vessel to the naval base at Haulbowline in Cork Harbour.

The two ‘Lake’ class cutters, formerly known as HMNZS Rotoiti and HMNZS Pukaki, were used by the Royal New Zealand Navy for a decade from 2009 to 2019. They will replace the since scrapped Naval Service Coastal Patrol Vessels (CPV) LÉ Orla and LÉ Ciara, which were originally part of the UK’s Royal Navy Hong Kong Squadron.

Now the Inshore Patrol Vessels (IPV) twins are of the P70 class and renamed as LÉ Aoibhinn (P71) and LÉ Gobnait (P72), though they are much smaller than the P60-type Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) quartet. Such as leadship, LÉ George Bernard Shaw, and LÉ James Joyce, they only need a crew of varying 20-24 to operate them. That is about half of what the P60 class vessels require.

Both P70’s areas of patrol will be focused in the Irish Sea on the east and southeast coasts, as the IPV’s are too small to operate in Atlantic weather conditions.

The role that the Department of Defence has tasked them with is to conduct out fishery patrols and customs checks in the Irish Sea, primarily as a result of Britain having left the European Union.

More from the Irish Examiner on the commissioning ceremony. 

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