{"id":628178,"date":"2026-09-18T04:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628178\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T04:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T04:12:13","slug":"ireland-to-acquire-long-range-radar-systems-from-french-military","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/628178\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland to acquire long-range radar systems from French military\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland has signed an acquisition order for the delivery of five long-range French military radar systems that are expected to be fully operational by the end of 2028.<\/p>\n

The acquisition of the ‘Thales’ radars was signed with the procurement arm of the French ministry for the armed forces.<\/p>\n

The aim is to improve Ireland\u2019s ability to police its own skies and provide a \u201ccomplete recognised air picture of Irish airspace”.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday is a further significant milestone in terms of delivery of the military radar programme, which was a key recommendation made by the Commission on the Defence Forces,<\/a>\u201d said minister for defence Helen McEntee.<\/p>\n

Concerns around Ireland\u2019s ground-based air defence capability have been heightened by multiple high-profile incidents.<\/p>\n

During a diplomatic visit from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in December, multiple drones were identified in Irish skies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last week, an unidentified drone was spotted by a commercial aircraft flying off the east coast, ahead of the visit of US president Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Drones can often be deployed by foreign states seeking to gather aerial reconnaissance and intelligence on rival powers\u2019 infrastructure and military sites.<\/p>\n

The Department of Defence said Ireland\u2019s ground-based air defence capabilities will continue to be beefed up, alongside the development of maritime radar capability.<\/p>\n

A recent report from the Wall Street Journal branded Irish waters Nato’s \u201cblind spot\u201d, claiming the prevalence of sub-sea cables off Ireland\u2019s coast was prone to Russian sabotage due to Ireland\u2019s defensive frailties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland has signed an acquisition order for the delivery of five long-range French military radar systems that are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13308,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-628178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-defence-forces","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628178","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=628178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}