The Irish Naval Service will not send ships on patrol without fully functioning weapons systems, according to the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces.
Lieutenant General Seán Clancy told RTÉ's This Week programme that a shortage of suitably qualified specialists to maintain the weapons systems on the fleet may result in fewer ships being put to sea.
Responding to a report in The Irish Times which suggested that ships may be put on patrol without functioning weapons due to a lack of qualified personnel, Lt Gen Clancy said: "Any ship that goes to sea, will be operationally ready.
"That includes every element, its weapons and its hardware that is on board that ship."
He added that the "ships we put to sea today are safe, operationally ready and prepared, including their weapons systems".
However, he indicated that fewer ships may be put to sea due to a shortage of qualified technicians.
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"We are taking measures to mitigate the risk that are presented to us by the lack of critical skill sets," he said.
"That risk mitigation means that in some cases we do not put ships to sea," he added.
Lt Gen Clancy said: "And there are times and occasions where we have a very low number of ships at sea because of the personnel and having the abundance of suitably qualified personnel and specialists that we require for those ships to operate at sea.
"But at no time will we put a ship to sea that is not safe or operational."
He said that a ship "cannot go to sea without certain key components on it and we have numbers which are about 30% below what we should have to run the Naval Service and its full fleet at this time."
However, Lt Gen Clancy said the Defence Forces had turned the corner on recruitment and at the end of 2024, there would be a positive growth in the Defence Forces numbers for the first time since 2017.
The numbers in the Naval Service will also grow, he said.
