{"id":206075,"date":"2025-12-23T01:52:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T01:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/206075\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T01:52:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T01:52:08","slug":"footage-of-drones-off-the-irish-coast-during-zelenskyy-visit-may-be-kept-from-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/206075\/","title":{"rendered":"Footage of drones off the Irish coast during Zelenskyy visit may be kept from the public"},"content":{"rendered":"

The public may never be shown official footage of unidentified drones flying off the Irish coast during Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s visit to Dublin earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred on the night Mr Zelenskyy had flown into Dublin Airport, when the crew on the naval vessel L\u00c9 William Butler Yeats spotting several drones flying off the coast of Howth.<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said he believed the Defence Forces had taken the correct decision in not shooting down the drones.<\/p>\n

When asked by the Irish Examiner when the public could expect to see Defence Forces footage of the incident, Mr Martin replied: \u201cYou\u2019re assuming that you\u2019re going to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that any decision relating to security matters had to take into account the best interests of the State, and he and senior ministers, including T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris, had received \u201ca very detailed briefing\u201d on the incident last week.<\/p>\n

\"Presidential<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the operational response from our personnel there, in my view, I think the correct decision was taken and the correct approach, and there\u2019s an investigation under way at the moment, so obviously nothing can happen until that investigation is concluded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na are now formally investigating that, I had a detailed briefing with the [Defence Forces Chief of Staff] and his team, and from the Garda Commissioner, in terms of the broader visit of President Zelenskyy, which in terms of security was a successful visit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s important to state that, and also to state that the drones did not constitute a threat to civilians, in any shape or form.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said he was \u201cabsolutely backing\u201d the Defence Forces\u2019 decision not to fire on the drones.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to trust in operational decision making, and I support the approach of the Defence Forces,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reflects a broader pattern of activity across Europe in terms of hybrid incidents of this kind. We\u2019re not the first country in Europe in recent times to have drones emerging, and it\u2019s an evolving situation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Presidential election<\/p>\n

Separately, Mr Martin was again asked about a fractious parliamentary party meeting at the start of last week following the publication of an internal review of Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s doomed presidential election campaign.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said he still intends to lead the party into the next general election despite internal criticism of his handling of a process that saw Jim Gavin selected as the Fianna F\u00e1il presidential candidate, only to later bow out of the race when it emerged he had failed to return money that was overpaid by a tenant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overwhelming view of the party was to concentrate and to focus on the issues that matter to the Irish people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we had to do what we had to do in terms of the review of the presidential election, but more fundamentally, TDs and senators are saying to me ‘continue doing what you are doing as Taoiseach’ in terms of focusing on the core issues facing the Irish people: housing, the infrastructure delivery, disability, child poverty, and also the wider issue of the international situation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week saw scathing responses from Cork North Central TD P\u00e1draig O\u2019Sullivan and Cork East TD James O\u2019Connor \u2014 both of whom are politically close to Billy Kelleher \u2014 following the publication of the party review.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Sullivan had described any claims that due diligence had been appropriately conducted of Jim Gavin\u2019s potential candidacy as \u201cfarcical\u201d, while Mr O\u2019Connor said the Taoiseach had \u201clost the dressing room\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin indicated he was not going to respond, saying he was moving on, before then adding: \u201cI have a lot of experience of dressing rooms throughout my life, in Cork as well, and I know how to keep a dressing room\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public may never be shown official footage of unidentified drones flying off the Irish coast during Ukrainian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[895,42,43,978,40,38,41,39,2040],"class_list":["post-206075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-fianna-fail","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-presidential-election","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}