{"id":55523,"date":"2025-10-01T18:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/55523\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:36:07","slug":"ireland-to-work-with-other-eu-countries-to-build-up-drone-defences-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/55523\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland to work with other EU countries to build up drone defences \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Government should work with other European Union<\/a> countries to build up its own military drone defences given the increased threat of interference posed by Russia<\/a>, Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

EU leaders discussed greater co-operation on defence spending and strengthening support for Ukraine<\/a> during a summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

The meeting debated new proposals for a \u201cdrone wall\u201d on the EU\u2019s borders, to detect, jam or possibly shoot down Russian drones that crossed into the territories of member states. These proposed defences would initially be concentrated on the bloc\u2019s eastern borders before being rolled out continent-wide. <\/p>\n

Ireland has already committed to a standalone project to update its own meagre air defences. This includes the purchase of primary radar systems, surface-to-air missiles and anti-drone technology.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0EU \u2018drone wall\u2019 to protect entire continent, says defence chief<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Speaking on his way in to the summit, the Taoiseach said Ireland should team up with other EU states when upgrading radar capabilities for the Defence Forces<\/a> and on efforts to guard against drone interference or threats to undersea cables. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes a lot of sense that we would work with other member states, who may have particular expertise, to develop stronger technological capability in respect of drones, for example, in respect of protecting subsea cables, cybersecurity as well,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the modern threats and we have witnessed reckless manifestations . . . on behalf of Russia in respect of drone violation of airspace. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are already engaged in defence procurement and potentially joint acquisitions and joint procurement with other member states in respect of key purchases [of] radar.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Department of Defence<\/a> said the European Commission<\/a> had yet to issue any \u201cdefinitive proposal\u201d for the development of a so-called drone wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce any proposal is made, Ireland, like other member states, will consider such a proposal in line with its national priorities,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n

The suggestion to upgrade Europe\u2019s anti-drone defences follows recent incursions of Russian drones into Polish air space, which sparked alarm. Rogue drones shut down several airports in Denmark last week as well. The Danish government has pointed the finger at the Kremlin as the most likely source of the disruption. <\/p>\n

EU leaders went back and forth on a proposal to use Russian cash to finance a \u20ac140 billion loan to fund Kyiv\u2019s efforts on the battlefield. The Russian assets have been frozen inside the EU under economic sanctions introduced after its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

It is understood there was a push during the Copenhagen summit to ensure national capitals set the EU\u2019s direction of travel when it came to greater defence co-operation. Such a move would possibly remove power from the union\u2019s executive arm led by Ursula von der Leyen, which has been taking on a bigger role in that area. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government should work with other European Union countries to build up its own military drone defences given…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[14024,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-55523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-drones","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55523","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=55523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}