The LE Aoibhinn (sister ship to Gobnait) docked in Cork – Ex – HMNZS Rotoiti

The USS Constellation is a guided missile frigate of the United States Navy, which is due to be commissioned and will come into service in 2029. She will displace 6,700 tonnes, and carry a crew of 140 sailors and servicemen, and have a range of 6,000 nautical miles, allowing her to sail almost halfway across the globe without re-fueling. She will cost the United States taxpayer almost exactly one billion dollars.

By way of contrast, the LE Aoibheann, pictured above, (formerly His Majesty’s New Zealand Ship Rotoiti) is the newest addition to the Irish Naval Service. She cost $13million, meaning that we would have to buy 77 more such ships to spend the same amount that the Americans are spending on Constellation.

She was commissioned as a New Zealand Navy in 2009, and managed ten years of service before the New Zealand Navy decided that she and her sister ship HMNZS Pukaki (now the LE Gobnait) were unsuited to the kind of rough seas typically found in the outer reaches of New Zealand’s territorial waters. This is relevant because the Irish Naval Service itself describes Irish waters as the roughest in the world. But that factor was apparently no barrier to acquiring the two ships.

They were both sold to Ireland for a knock-down price: €26 million for two ships.

Since their acquisition, it was revealed this week, the LE Gobnait has not been to sea even once. That is because – per the Naval service – of a shortage of crewmen and women. The ships only require twenty people each to set to sea, but the Naval Service is incapable of finding sufficient people to crew the Gobnait. In addition, both ships require significant upgrades to their equipment for the (one would have thought not overly taxing) job of patrolling and policing Irish fishing.

The Irish Naval service has a total of eight vessels. In theory, two of these are supposed to be at sea at any one time, though the Irish Times tells us that “this has not always been possible over the last year”. The entirety of the Naval Service comprises 740-odd personnel. For comparison, the flagship of the Royal Navy, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, carries a crew and complement of almost 1,000.

Few would argue that the Irish naval service needs either a billion-dollar frigate, or an Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier. Nevertheless, for a maritime nation, it can hardly be denied that the state of this country’s naval service is a national embarrassment. Perhaps you consider the comparison with the USA and the UK unfair? Well, then, pick two similarly sized and geographically situated countries: Denmark, and Portugal.

The Royal Danish Navy is five times the size of the Irish Naval Service in terms of personnel (3,400 men in arms) and twice its size in terms of main fleet vessels (16 versus 8). Its flagship, the Absalon, is an anti-submarine warfare frigate roughly the same size as the USS Constellation with 100 full-time crew members and room for an additional 300. It carries advanced sonar for submarine detection, and advanced offensive capabilities. It is four times larger than the largest ship in the Irish fleet, the LE Roisin.

The Portugese Navy (also known in Portugal as The Portugese Armada, which is pretty cool) comprises 79 ships and 5 supporting aircraft as well as one advanced submarine. The standing naval manpower is over 8,000 men at arms. It has two advanced frigates, a bunch of corvettes, and dozens of smaller craft for policing fishing and the coastline.

Now, you might argue that neither Portugal nor Denmark are “neutral countries” like Ireland, but this is hardly the point: Both of them are coastal European countries with large territorial waters and where the fishing industry is important. Both of them like Ireland are home, in their territorial waters, to vitally important strategic infrastructure in the form of undersea cables and offshore wells.

And both of them take the task of policing their waters seriously. Ireland does not.

The argument that Ireland does not need to because “we would never be at war” or that “the UK and US would protect us” is also moot. Portugal and Denmark by virtue of their NATO membership can be absolutely guaranteed military aid and assistance should they need it. Ireland is not guaranteed such assistance. Indeed, our neutrality cannot even be enforced: NATO ships can sail through our waters with impunity, just as Russian submarines can utilise our waters without fear of detection.

This week, we reported on Gript the fact that Ireland is spending €300,000 of its defence budget to convert two old Land Rovers from Diesel Engines to Electric Engines. This is on top of the €350m spent not very long ago to “climate proof the defence estate”.

Yes: Ireland spends more on projects to climate-proof the defence forces than it does to equip or staff them.

You can say many things about this. But you cannot possibly say that this is a serious country that takes its own defence seriously. And when European Countries dismiss – as they do – Ireland’s views on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, it is partly (as foreign affairs commissioner Kaja Kallas noted last week) because nobody mistakes us for serious people on defence and security.

Why do people in the Middle East listen to Donald Trump but not Simon Harris? There are many reasons. But a big one is that Trump can deploy the USS Constellation. And Ireland cannot even deploy the tiny boats that it already owns.

If the public are content with that, so be it. But we should not harbour any delusions about what the rest of the world sees.

Note: An earlier version of this article said that “neither the Aoibheann nor the Gobnait have been to sea”. In fact, the LE Aoibheann has been to sea on several occasions. We regret the error.