{"id":218287,"date":"2025-12-06T09:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T09:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/218287\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T09:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T09:05:07","slug":"senior-gardai-express-annoyance-over-defence-forces-response-to-rogue-drones-during-zelenskiy-visit-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/218287\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior garda\u00ed express annoyance over Defence Forces\u2019 response to rogue drones during Zelenskiy visit \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior garda\u00ed<\/a> have questioned the Defence Forces<\/a>\u2019 handling of the security incident in the skies off Dublin<\/a> on Monday night around the time the Ukrainian<\/a> president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a>\u2019s aircraft arrived for a State visit to Ireland.<\/p>\n

The drone incident<\/a> is regarded as a possible effort to disrupt the flight\u2019s arrival or to cause embarrassment to the Republic and highlight its weak defences.<\/p>\n

The Irish Times has learned of significant annoyance among senior Garda officers that the Defence Forces did not open fire on the drones, or even fire warning shots, as the French military did on Thursday night when drones were spotted over a nuclear submarine base.<\/p>\n

Senior garda\u00ed are annoyed at what one source termed the \u201cweak\u201d response from the Defence Forces, which had the L\u00c9 William Butler Yeats in the area at the time as part of the State security operation for Mr Zelenskiy\u2019s visit. <\/p>\n

Some Garda officers believe the Naval Service<\/a> should have fired at the drones, especially as the incident unfolded so far out to sea with the risk of collateral damage negligible.<\/p>\n

Garda Headquarters said its special detective unit<\/a> (SDU) was leading the investigation into the events of Monday night, aided by the Defence Forces and international partners. It made no reference to how the Defence Forces had handled the incident.<\/p>\n

When it was put to the Defence Forces senior garda\u00ed were annoyed at the decision by the Naval Service not to fire on the drones, it said it \u201cdoes not comment on speculation in relation to operations\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, \u00d3glaigh na h\u00c9ireann support to the security operation, led by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, was successfully deployed in multiple means ultimately leading to a safe and successful visit by the President Zelensky to Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident took place much further off the coast than previously reported, with several sources saying the drones lingered in an area about 12-13 nautical miles out to sea.<\/p>\n

Though the drones flew into the path Mr Zelenskiy\u2019s aircraft had earlier taken in the off-coast area, they did so only after a considerable time had elapsed. One source believed Mr Zelenskiy\u2019s aircraft had landed in Dublin before the incident in the skies out to sea began to unfold.<\/p>\n

No evidence has emerged to date that Russia<\/a> or pro-Russian entities were involved. The origin of the drones, and the motivations for the incident, remain unknown. Garda sources said its investigation is focused on trying to map the path of the drones, including where they took off and landed.<\/p>\n

Though the drones appeared to be sophisticated and expensive, and were expertly flown a long way out to sea, garda\u00ed have not ruled out the possibility a non-State actor was involved.<\/p>\n

Garda headquarters confirmed the SDU investigation on Friday after previously stating it was not investigating the matter.<\/p>\n

The SDU is primarily tasked with investigating terrorism and threats to the State and has in the past been involved in investigations into suspected Russian espionage and other forms of hybrid warfare.<\/p>\n

The drones were first spotted by the crew of L\u00c9 William Butler Yeats which was positioned in Dublin Bay as part of the security operation in place for the Ukrainian president\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n

The Irish Times has learned another naval ship, the L\u00c9 Aoibhinn, was also secretly positioned in the bay at the time, acting as an inner cordon.<\/p>\n

The Yeats\u2019s crew have now been fully debriefed on the drone sightings. It is understood officials have queried whether sentries may have mistaken civilian aircraft in a holding pattern over the bay for drones.<\/p>\n

However, military officers have insisted the drones were flying much closer and much lower than the civilian aircraft. Footage was also obtained of the incident.<\/p>\n

The drone sightings do not appear to have interfered with civilian air traffic, a review of air traffic control logs shows.<\/p>\n

On Friday, at a meeting of the British-Irish Council in Wales Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> confirmed he had been briefed on the matter. It was the first official comment on the sightings since news broke of the incident on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The newly formed ministerial National Security Council<\/a> will meet later this month and the incident will form part of its discussions, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin declined to comment when asked if Russia was suspected of involvement. \u201cI\u2019m not going to make any comment until we have a full review,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Russian embassy issued a statement on Friday condemning Mr Zelenskiy\u2019s visit. However, it did not respond to queries about the drone incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior garda\u00ed have questioned the Defence Forces\u2019 handling of the security incident in the skies off Dublin on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,9217,52,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,35146,11,12,15,16,5,550,7,8,2264,2267],"class_list":{"0":"post-218287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-defence-forces","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-garda-siochana","17":"tag-headlines","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-irish-naval-service","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-russia","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories","29":"tag-ukraine-crisis","30":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115671828429766726","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}