{"id":243140,"date":"2025-12-20T18:16:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T18:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/243140\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T18:16:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T18:16:15","slug":"defence-forces-took-correct-decision-not-to-shoot-down-rogue-drones-says-taoiseach-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/243140\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence Forces took \u2018correct decision\u2019 not to shoot down rogue drones, says Taoiseach \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Defence Forces took the \u201ccorrect decision\u201d not to shoot down unidentified drones that appeared off the Irish coast during an official visit to Ireland by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said.<\/p>\n

He was speaking on Saturday during a visit to Lebanon where he met Irish peacekeepers at Camp Shamrock, the main Irish base for troops in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil<\/a>), 7km from the border with Israel.<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said he had a \u201cvery detailed briefing\u201d with T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris and other Ministers last week on the drone incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, on the operation response, the correct decision was taken and the correct approach. There is an investigation under way at the moment \u2013 obviously nothing can happen until that is concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach pointed out that An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na was formally investigating the matter. \u201cI had a detailed brief with the chief and his team, the Garda Commissioner, in terms of the broader visit of president Zelenskiy which in terms of security was successful \u2013 it\u2019s important to state that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe drones did not constitute any danger to civilians in any shape or form.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rogue drones, which were launched as Ukrainian<\/a> president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> was arriving in Ireland, came as close as 500m to Irish naval vessel L\u00c9 William Butler Yeats.<\/p>\n

However, security sources told The Irish Times last week that the officers of L\u00c9 William Butler Yeats felt that due to the rules of engagement in place at the time, and the presence of civilian aircraft in the skies above, they could not open fire.<\/p>\n

Senior garda\u00ed<\/a> have privately criticised the Naval Service<\/a>\u2019s decision not to shoot down the five drones that were spotted hovering around the ship late on Monday night, about 13 nautical miles out to sea in Dublin Bay.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Drones over Dublin Bay: What happened during Zelenskiy\u2019s visit to Ireland?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Drone sightings highlight worrying gaps in our national securityOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said he was \u201cabsolutely backing\u201d the Defence Forces\u2019 decision not to fire on the drones and that he had \u201cabsolute trust in the operational decision making\u201d at the time. Mr Martin said the incident \u201creflects a broader pattern of activity across Europe in terms of incidents of this kind\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not the first country in Europe in recent times to have drones emerging and it\u2019s an evolving situation. A pattern has developed in various hybrid activities such as issues in the Baltic Sea and we have activity in the maritime space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said Ireland and Europe would continue to invest in drone technology, critical undersea technology, port security and cyber security.<\/p>\n

\"IrishIrish peacekeeping troops at Camp Shamrock, Lebanon, 7km from the border with Israel. Photograph: Sally Hayden <\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in Lebanon, Mr Martin was also asked about the capacity of the health service to deal with the current flu outbreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very serious flu and all the advice is that it will peak in and around Christmas Day and Christmas week,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are various actions being taken by the health services which have been taken already which are mitigating the impact on acute hospitals to every degree possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said actions were being taken by \u201cvarious hospitals in terms of restrictions\u201d and he encouraged people to get vaccinated. \u201cIt is a particularly strong strain of the flu.\u201d <\/p>\n

As the controversy over Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s failed presidential campaign continues, Mr Martin said he still intended to lead the party into the next general election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe overwhelming view of the party is to focus on the issues that matter to the Irish public. We needed to do what we had to do in terms of the review of the presidential election. Most importantly, TDs and Senators are saying to me \u2018continue doing what you are doing as Taoiseach\u2019 in terms of focusing on the core issues facing the Irish people in terms of housing, the infrastructure delivery [and] child poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Defence Forces took the \u201ccorrect decision\u201d not to shoot down unidentified drones that appeared off the Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,127764,13,14,6,35146,11,12,15,16,5765,5,7,8,18176,2267,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-243140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-defence-forces-of-ireland","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-irish-naval-service","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-micheal-martin","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-unifil","24":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy","25":"tag-world","26":"tag-world-news","27":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115753267028157357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243140","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=243140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}