So if we rely on the UK for our security, we might as well rejoin them and solve all the issues in Northern Ireland while we’re at it given we’re just independent in name only it seems
No word on how much we are paying for this service? They won’t be doing this for free.
Embarrassing at this point.
This is just The Irish Times doing a solid for their blueshirt masters and trying to embarrass Ireland into tooling up. That’s fine, it’s free speech and all that but it’s not enough reason to run out and buy 12 fighter jets. Nobody has talked about what a credible defence looks like for Ireland. We’re stuck in 1947 with the whole thing anyway. For example, big ol’ fighter jet’s are obsolete in the era of drones and missiles anyway.
We should probably say thank you to King Charles for his forces protection.
makes sense , who wouldn’t assume this wasnt the case
Considering the UK owns some of Ireland, they’re going to always have an interest in potentially hostile aircraft no matter what some cunts signed however many years ago.
Any player big enough to be going near Ireland is going to get a response from the UK without doubt.
It’s not that the UK is protecting Ireland, its that the UK is protecting the UK.
Anyone following security and defence related topics (which in Ireland is very low be it among politicians, policy makers and journalists never mind the general public) knew about this years ago. Open conversation amount security experts and analysts since at least 2001 (that was the last renewal). It was the worst kept secret in defence. Well know academics speaking about it on social media pretty much every day for the last decade.
Further evidence of how little interest in this country there is in matter relating to security and defence issues.
Irish neutrality is the worst. We chose to remain neutral because we didn’t like our potential ally yet we still rely on that country for defence. We were invited to join NATO in the beginning but we refused because Britain was in it, that’s it..
And why can’t we have a functioning army? Switzerland and Austria are constitutionally neutral countries like us but have some of the best weapons manufacturing in the world and strong armies in their own right.
We rely on our neighbour for support, yet there are many people who complain about that too. For all intensive purposes Ireland doesn’t have an army, and it’s ridiculous.
> Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell is taking a High Court action aimed at having the agreement declared unconstitutional.
Well this will be interesting
The govt here exists to not do anything
Twenty years ago it was dragged into the light of day by an offhand remark of a Minister.
1. This is in UKs interest, they can’t be having an Ireland-sized-hole in the west Europe/North Atlantic zone. It’s in their interest more than ours. If we didn’t let them, they do it anyways. Fact. It’s every Irish government saying, we know you’ll just fly over us, we just promise not to complain about it and pretend we’re in on it too.
2. The Russian bomber flights are no real threat to anyone, their just posturing by both sides, it’s embarrassing though.
3. Ireland being able to monitor it’s air space by radar and not being able to shoot anything down, even terrorist, drone or rogue civilian aircraft is embarrassing and makes us reliant on others. Things like this could be held against us in the future.
4. Keeping this ‘open secret’ is an insult to the electorate.
5. The timing of all this is confusing, were under no more threat to our democracy and territory as we were in the cold war, the USSR was a much greater threat to capitalism. Putin is not seeking to get us and we have no major threat to their idealogy. They’re scum to their people and ‘sphere of influence’ though.
An unprovoked and surprise invasion of Ireland is impossible to imagine but there are definitely threats possible, especially if the UK, EU or US lost stability and hegemony. I don’t fear the Russians and i don’t think they’ve much to gain from occupying us but I’d be more worried about a civil war or fascist swing, or a break up of our neighbors and the **Pax Americana** into something more belligerent. Who knows what climate change could unleash, for example. I’ve become convinced we do need a beefed up defence force for the having the foundations to build upon in time or emergency.
Though, part of me always wonders if this is being pushed by the military -industrial complex which would gain from Irish investment and contracts.
Great when you can offload the cost of defending your own territory to the Brits. Are they at it lads? Or is it given a pass this time?
Yes you can have an expanded Irish air force If you want but you won’t pay the tax to buy and maintain it.
Brazil bought JAS-39 e Gripen recently
And got 36 aircraft including trainers.
Aircraft cost €4.02 billion
Running cost per aircraft per year €1.2 million
(Based on 5hrs per week x 53 x€4700 per hour)
Total cost of 1 years flying 36 aircraft €43.9 million
And you would need that amount to cover east and western approaches to the coast.
Also you would need millions to recruit train and pay pilots. Ballpark €4million per year
You would probably need an extensive early warning lands based radar network to track airborne contacts. €2billion
You could also need airborne early warning aircraft which aren’t cheap.€god knows
And finally when all these super noisy aircraft turn up in Baldonnel you would need a new airbase after 5 or 6 high court cases against noise pollution. Let’s say €2billion
So nobody is going to pay tax to chase aircraft that couldn’t give a shite about Ireland. And are only playing cat and mouse with NATO.
Sorry but everyone loves us , ain’t no one invading.
So this _not secret_ agreement removes any need for Ireland to spend the tens of billions required to build and maintain its own military – _and_ it keeps us off the nuclear strike list.
Yet the arms industry shills want us to ditch all of that, and they are putting lots of money/effort into brigading the sub on this issue.
Real divergence between military analysts/ academics and government’s glib and dismissive attitude. The govt has huge political capital invested in the degradation of the DF so it’s understandable that they are going to minimize it. As the story is in IT you can only hope it’s actually encouraged by govt spin doctors to prepare ground for proper investment. Not likely though.
30 comments
So if we rely on the UK for our security, we might as well rejoin them and solve all the issues in Northern Ireland while we’re at it given we’re just independent in name only it seems
No word on how much we are paying for this service? They won’t be doing this for free.
Embarrassing at this point.
This is just The Irish Times doing a solid for their blueshirt masters and trying to embarrass Ireland into tooling up. That’s fine, it’s free speech and all that but it’s not enough reason to run out and buy 12 fighter jets. Nobody has talked about what a credible defence looks like for Ireland. We’re stuck in 1947 with the whole thing anyway. For example, big ol’ fighter jet’s are obsolete in the era of drones and missiles anyway.
We should probably say thank you to King Charles for his forces protection.
[And the problems of so called plausible deniability](https://twitter.com/mcnamara_eoin/status/1655494085438763009?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
Yep thank god for the Brits /s
Read some of the people who have been shouting into the indifference and hypocrisy of Ireland for decades:
[Don Lavery, ex Indo, tells it like it has been.](https://twitter.com/donlav/status/1655507344506208258?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
The fallout continues.
[Cathal Berry TD calls it as it is.](https://twitter.com/berrycathal/status/1655430578408239105?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
I never thought I’d give Shane Ross credit but fair play to him for stating the obvious that the public should know about this agreement.
And people are beginning to join up the dots and see the degradation of the DF as a consequence. Dependency being encouraged.
[Questions about loss of anti submarine capacity.](https://twitter.com/dohville/status/1655524612095066115?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
makes sense , who wouldn’t assume this wasnt the case
Considering the UK owns some of Ireland, they’re going to always have an interest in potentially hostile aircraft no matter what some cunts signed however many years ago.
Any player big enough to be going near Ireland is going to get a response from the UK without doubt.
It’s not that the UK is protecting Ireland, its that the UK is protecting the UK.
mickey collins would be turning in his grave
More journalists calling it plainly for what it is. [Read it please](https://twitter.com/normcos/status/1655466956357615616?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
As expected, the expert opinion begins to point to the issues.
[Have a read here](https://twitter.com/kennethmcdonagh/status/1655499956487069696?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
Anyone following security and defence related topics (which in Ireland is very low be it among politicians, policy makers and journalists never mind the general public) knew about this years ago. Open conversation amount security experts and analysts since at least 2001 (that was the last renewal). It was the worst kept secret in defence. Well know academics speaking about it on social media pretty much every day for the last decade.
Further evidence of how little interest in this country there is in matter relating to security and defence issues.
Irish neutrality is the worst. We chose to remain neutral because we didn’t like our potential ally yet we still rely on that country for defence. We were invited to join NATO in the beginning but we refused because Britain was in it, that’s it..
And why can’t we have a functioning army? Switzerland and Austria are constitutionally neutral countries like us but have some of the best weapons manufacturing in the world and strong armies in their own right.
We rely on our neighbour for support, yet there are many people who complain about that too. For all intensive purposes Ireland doesn’t have an army, and it’s ridiculous.
> Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell is taking a High Court action aimed at having the agreement declared unconstitutional.
Well this will be interesting
The govt here exists to not do anything
Twenty years ago it was dragged into the light of day by an offhand remark of a Minister.
[Irish Independent](https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/governments-secret-plan-to-ask-britain-for-help-if-attacked/26229191.html)
World’s worst kept secret, this has been well known for as long as I can remember
I’ve known about this for years, I didn’t even know it was a secret. I guess it’s just not talked about much
Anyone clarify these comments from Junior Minister Peter Burke?
[Drivetime Comments quoted here](https://twitter.com/edward__burke/status/1655627249209552927?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
1. This is in UKs interest, they can’t be having an Ireland-sized-hole in the west Europe/North Atlantic zone. It’s in their interest more than ours. If we didn’t let them, they do it anyways. Fact. It’s every Irish government saying, we know you’ll just fly over us, we just promise not to complain about it and pretend we’re in on it too.
2. The Russian bomber flights are no real threat to anyone, their just posturing by both sides, it’s embarrassing though.
3. Ireland being able to monitor it’s air space by radar and not being able to shoot anything down, even terrorist, drone or rogue civilian aircraft is embarrassing and makes us reliant on others. Things like this could be held against us in the future.
4. Keeping this ‘open secret’ is an insult to the electorate.
5. The timing of all this is confusing, were under no more threat to our democracy and territory as we were in the cold war, the USSR was a much greater threat to capitalism. Putin is not seeking to get us and we have no major threat to their idealogy. They’re scum to their people and ‘sphere of influence’ though.
An unprovoked and surprise invasion of Ireland is impossible to imagine but there are definitely threats possible, especially if the UK, EU or US lost stability and hegemony. I don’t fear the Russians and i don’t think they’ve much to gain from occupying us but I’d be more worried about a civil war or fascist swing, or a break up of our neighbors and the **Pax Americana** into something more belligerent. Who knows what climate change could unleash, for example. I’ve become convinced we do need a beefed up defence force for the having the foundations to build upon in time or emergency.
Though, part of me always wonders if this is being pushed by the military -industrial complex which would gain from Irish investment and contracts.
This is not going away.
[Irish Examiner article](https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-40934678.html)
Former DF members are reeling over the revelation today:
[Read it and think again about governments since the 1950’s.](https://twitter.com/soldier_destin/status/1655588756215169024?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)
Great when you can offload the cost of defending your own territory to the Brits. Are they at it lads? Or is it given a pass this time?
Yes you can have an expanded Irish air force If you want but you won’t pay the tax to buy and maintain it.
Brazil bought JAS-39 e Gripen recently
And got 36 aircraft including trainers.
Aircraft cost €4.02 billion
Running cost per aircraft per year €1.2 million
(Based on 5hrs per week x 53 x€4700 per hour)
Total cost of 1 years flying 36 aircraft €43.9 million
And you would need that amount to cover east and western approaches to the coast.
Also you would need millions to recruit train and pay pilots. Ballpark €4million per year
You would probably need an extensive early warning lands based radar network to track airborne contacts. €2billion
You could also need airborne early warning aircraft which aren’t cheap.€god knows
And finally when all these super noisy aircraft turn up in Baldonnel you would need a new airbase after 5 or 6 high court cases against noise pollution. Let’s say €2billion
So nobody is going to pay tax to chase aircraft that couldn’t give a shite about Ireland. And are only playing cat and mouse with NATO.
Sorry but everyone loves us , ain’t no one invading.
So this _not secret_ agreement removes any need for Ireland to spend the tens of billions required to build and maintain its own military – _and_ it keeps us off the nuclear strike list.
Yet the arms industry shills want us to ditch all of that, and they are putting lots of money/effort into brigading the sub on this issue.
Real divergence between military analysts/ academics and government’s glib and dismissive attitude. The govt has huge political capital invested in the degradation of the DF so it’s understandable that they are going to minimize it. As the story is in IT you can only hope it’s actually encouraged by govt spin doctors to prepare ground for proper investment. Not likely though.
[Read this](https://twitter.com/mcnamara_eoin/status/1655657958343147523?s=46&t=OO1gXO-UtycAHHgdPfojOg)