The section of the Revenue Customs Service responsible for patrolling Ireland's coastline has launched its first campaign to hire clerical officers to staff its patrol boats.
The Maritime Unit's cutters are responsible for monitoring and patrolling Ireland's 3,173km of coastline in its role of identifying, targeting and disrupting smuggling.
Speaking in Cork, Revenue's Maritime Operations Manager Andrew Ryan said the unit is looking for people who want to work at sea in a law enforcement role to fill over a dozen current and anticipated future vacancies.
"Believe it or not", Mr Ryan said "The majority of people who join our Revenue Maritime Unit have no prior experience of working at sea".
"Obviously, we do want to recruit people who want to work at sea so previous experience in boats, maybe the Merchant navy, fishing or sailing may be an advantage to a candidate for a career within the RMU," he said.
"But we are also looking for people, who maybe have had careers already in both security, defence or policing who may be also suitable for taking up the role of a Customs Officer for doing maritime law enforcement at sea".
The unit operates two customs cutters or patrol vessels, RCC Suirbhéir and RCC Faire, based in Cork.
A new vessel, to replace the 20-year-old RCC Suirbhéir, is due to be delivered by next September.
Mr Ryan said the work is varied, personally rewarding and challenging.
He believes the unit is well-resourced and benefiting from increased international collaboration in recent years.
"Drug trafficking is an international problem not just an Irish problem so we are required to work with our law enforcement colleagues internationally," he said.
"Also, we have been very well supported by advanced analytics, new assets, and these supports are very important in relation to the fight against drug trafficking."
Last year, Revenue seized drugs to the value of €302 million including the €157 million worth of cocaine detected onboard the MV Matthew in September 2023.
So far this year, €170 million worth of drugs have been seized.
