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ONE OF THE Taoiseach’s first engagements as the new Minister for Defence has been to launch the new LÉ Samuel Beckett.
The vessel was commissioned today at a naming ceremony beside the Samuel Beckett Bridge in Dublin city centre.
An Taoiseach and Minister for Defence attended the naming ceremony for the new Naval Service ship, which was carried out by a niece of Samuel Beckett, Caroline Murphy.
Kenny said that the naming and commissioning “carried with it a great sense of pride and anticipation for all Naval Service personnel”.
LÉ Samuel Beckett will be a tremendous asset to the Naval Service. I know that the ship’s first captain, Commander Ken Minehane and his crew are eagerly looking forward to working up the new ship to its full potential.
Kenny added that the Naval Service “presents a wide range of challenging roles to all of its personnel, now more than ever before”.
Naval Service ships assert the integrity of our territorial waters; they protect both the waters of the country and the European Union. The continuing success of the Naval Service in fulfilling the roles of fishery protection, marine search and rescue and its many other tasks has resulted in a much more widespread public appreciation of the importance of the Naval Service to the entire community.
There are two new ships, which are larger vessels than LÉ Roisin and LÉ Niamh at a length of 89.5m.
The cost of the two new ships is €108m. LÉ Samuel Beckett replaces LÉ Emer, which was decommissioned and sold late last year. The ship will have a main crew of 44.
Work on the second ship, LÉ James Joyce, is “well advanced”, said the Defence Forces, and it should be completed early in 2015. LÉ James Joyce will replace LÉ Aoife.
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He sounds like great craic
He must be a blueshirt.
I wonder could we get him over here ? Savings of about €150k on salary and he will clean up crime as well !
This geriatric tosser wont stand up to any real criminals. Hes just another dictator who’ll be hard on citizens while he lives off backhanders from organised crime. Where are all the assassins gone?
They’re off making a film with Michael Fassbender.
Makes Donald sound like a pinky left liberal.
Hillary can supply him with the arms and ammo from her ISIS stash
Could do with him in Ireland !!
Snipers should be brought in here to sort out the gangland problem
Sounds more like a dictator!
Interesting approach good luck with that
Just rhink about this for a minute. If parents let their kids out at night he will jail the parents. So who will look after the kids then? The State? Who will pay for that? It just demonstrates the kind of knee jerk red neck thinking of this moron. He doesn’t fight crime he just gets the State to commit crime instead of the “private sector”. Murders become state sanctioned executions and robberies become “contributions”. He is definitely a dictator in the making and the people of the Phillipines will dearly regret electing him.
Or maybe it will stop parents allowing their children out at night..
he has been doing this for 20 years in davao. we have a Penal code. laws of the land that protects minors from abuse and neglect. before we assume lets read the facts first.
People on here seem to forget he was freely elected with a massive majority of the vote. I know many are opposed to the Death Penalty. But look at what crimes he is proposing to introduce it for. Murder, Terrorism, Rape, Child Molestation, Armed Robbery and Drug Smuggling/Dealing. All crimes many on here have said should be dealt with in the most draconian manner. And how many times have we read stories of feral kids here roaming in packs, attacking frontline emergency personnel and have read comments about making the parents pay. As for his shoot to kill policy. Simple solution, don’t resist being arrested.
And it’s that simple is it?
Yes Deborah, it is that simple.
Do you really think drug dealers/smugglers should be hung?
Yes Mick, you are that simple
I never pretended to be complicated Ross. Only the pretentious try to be.
Hi Mick, I am from the Philippines it is very sad to think my people forgot that they got rid of Martial Law and what the call a dictator only to go back to this. I wish and pray it works for their benefit and future.
As I said Theresa the vast majority of your countrymen voted for him in free elections knowing full well what his policies were and his history as mayor. People must have seen no alternative in the other candidates when it came to tackling crime.
Hitler, Mugabe, Al bashir, lukashenko and most importantly for this story, Ferdinand Marcos were all elected and look how their ruling turned out.
Ross. We got Enda. Nobody is claiming that a Free Democratic election is perfect but it is the Peoples choice. And in this case he was elected by a vast majority of the Filipino people. He made no attempt to hide his policies, his history as Mayor of Davao city was there for all to see and yet still they voted for him in their millions.
And we think we are hard done by with Enda in charge
Just a different type of dictator
What a nice fellow.
They should fear the IMF mafia more and the march of aggressive neo liberal capitalism which has been destroying them. Watch this documentary.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79bZ71fUZRU
oh a good crack down on drug dealers, rapist and murders sounds like a great idea. and for parents who let their kids walk the streets at night in such a dangerous place should not be allow look after kids.
Extra-judicial killings are not the way forward no matter what. And I have always been perfectly safe in the Philippines.
It’s an interesting case study all the same.
I was in Davao last year and the people there love him. It was extremely safe by day and night although there is a very visible police force on the streets all fully armed. Smoking is banned literally everywhere and bars close at 1:30am. People in the city all seemed very happy and say it’s a god send from the days when Davao was the murder Capitol of the Phillipines. Whether such draconian ideology work across the nation remains to be seen but with so many phillipinos sick of crime and corruption you can see why they voted for him….
The majority of my friends here in Belfast are Filipino and I’m surprised by the support for him given the votes they cast in our recent election in the north. Why Miriam Defensor Santiago’s polling was so low is staggering – a highly intelligent, able, socially liberal academic and former International Criminal Court Judge. She may be mouthy but she was more than able. For Duterte to win, and for Marcos to poll astronomically higher than Miriam is completely and totally beyond me. It’s American-style cult of personality madness!
Or maybe the country want a serious change
Robbi, Mirriam was the only deserving candidate, if not for her being very sick ( granted she said her stage 4 cancer is in remission) people are in no doubt would have voted for her. Marcos is running for VP and Merriam is for President so their votes don’t connect.
This article perfectly encapsulates how bad the AFP is. Duterte is a plague and is a step backwards for The Philippines, it’s literally the easiest honest hit piece in the world to write but they just can’t help themselves. “He claimed Davao is one of the safest cities in the Philippines” well is it or isn’t it? How hard is it to quote the figures to us? Are they that afraid of admitting he may have been successful at one thing? God just report the facts and leave out the spin.
He must be Muslim…
He sounds absolutely crazy!!! I fear for the country!!!
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