Sir, The summary of training for Naval Service cadets in your E&L supplement (April 8th) is inaccurate. The degree in marine, science at Galway University, to which your correspondents assigned the potential engineers, is in fact a BSc degree course (modified to meet the needs of the Naval Service) for which young officers of the executive branch sit.
The engineer cadets, who formerly attended ATC Cork, and various courses at naval establishments in Britain, from this year will sit for a Bachelor of mechanical engineering degree at UCG and complete their training at the Naval Base and on board NS ships. The degree courses have been introduced as a result of research which showed that the lack of a perceived suitable qualification for later employment in civilian life, was a factor in the decline of the number of school leavers applying for Naval Service cadet ships.
However, a greater deterrent must be the reluctance, over 50 years of successive administrations to equip and man the Naval Service for the ever increasing and vital roles it is asked to fulfil. The consultants, Price Waterhouse, two months ago provided the Government with a report of their in depth investigation into the needs of the Naval Service, commissioned by the Minister for Defence.
Not a word of the report which can only recommend, in line with every other such investigation or board of inquiry over the years, a considerable expansion in the size of the current fleet of seven ships has been published. One can only conclude that the heavy and insensitive hand of the Department of Finance, so persistently evident while researching for The Irish Navy ) Story of Courage and Tenacity, is again keeping the Naval Service in particular, and the Defence Forces in general, well down the list of priorities. Yours, etc.,
Killiney Hill Park, Glenageary, Co Dublin.