{"id":472880,"date":"2025-10-04T05:44:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T05:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/472880\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T05:44:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T05:44:11","slug":"ireland-not-immune-to-russian-meddling-in-politics-taoiseach-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/472880\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland not \u2018immune\u2019 to Russian meddling in politics, Taoiseach says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is growing concern in Government about possible ways Russia<\/a> may covertly be trying to meddle in Irish politics, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

In an interview with The Irish Times, Mr Martin said he had \u201creal concerns\u201d that groups stoking fears about asylum seekers<\/a> could potentially be tied to the Kremlin\u2019s \u201cweaponisation\u201d of migration to undermine governments in Europe<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The State will likely have to reassess its security planning for a major political summit of European leaders that Ireland will host next year, Mr Martin said, in light of the heightened threats of malicious interference from drones, as recently seen in Denmark<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Republic was not \u201cimmune\u201d to having its political system or elections targeted by Russia, though clearly not to the extent that Moscow had tried to tip the scales against a pro-EU government in Moldova in a recent election, Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said he will ask the Electoral Commission to talk to Moldovan electoral authorities, to learn about the methods Russia had employed in its unsuccessful attempt to influence that vote. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Moldovan case, so many false, fake [social media] accounts were established and financed, so let\u2019s not pretend that we\u2019re immune to that,\u201d the Fianna F\u00e1il leader said. There had been an \u201cextraordinary\u201d effort to undermine the pro-European party in Moldova, he said. <\/p>\n

That election saw Moldovan president Maia Sandu\u2019s party defeat Russian-leaning opponents, in a win that was viewed as preventing the eastern state from sliding into Russia\u2019s orbit. <\/p>\n

There was evidence of outside actors flooding the online space in Ireland in the past, Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe found out ourselves on the night of the Dublin riots for example \u2026 The traffic on social media was extraordinarily high. There was no question that there was an orchestration by some actors out there, can\u2019t specifically say who, but there\u2019s no doubt that there was,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0There is \u2018naivety\u2019 in Ireland over Russian threat, says TaoiseachOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"TheThe number of asylum seekers and migrants arriving in Europe could also be linked to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, says the Taoiseach. Photograph: Alexander Kazakov\/ AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Speaking after a two-day European summit dominated by discussions of security and the Ukraine war<\/a>, Mr Martin characterised the threat Russia posed to the EU as \u201cserious enough\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight across all areas, critical maritime security, subsea cables, cyber security, hybrid attacks, Russia presents a threat,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The number of asylum seekers and migrants arriving in Europe could also be linked to Russian leader Vladimir Putin<\/a>, he said. \u201cRussia is not active in Libya and in the Middle East for nothing, or in Africa, it\u2019s controlling some of the migratory pathways, it\u2019s pushing migration into Europe,\u201d the Taoiseach said. <\/p>\n

The week before the Copenhagen summit saw unidentified drones force several of Denmark\u2019s airports to temporarily shut<\/a>, causing significant disruption. Senior EU figures privately suspect a Russian hand behind the interference, though that has not been confirmed. <\/p>\n

The Government will have to incorporate those new risks into its own preparations to host the same European summit in Ireland late next year, the Taoiseach said. <\/p>\n

A meeting of 47 European heads of state and government will take place during the State\u2019s six-month term holding the EU council presidency. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Is Europe already at war with Russia?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly the events of the last number of weeks has given us focus … has given us food for thought,\u201d Mr Martin said. <\/p>\n

The summit will be the \u201clargest political meeting ever held in Ireland,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have obligations obviously to protect the security of the meetings \u2026 So that\u2019s something we\u2019re very conscious of,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Hosting the summit and other high-level meetings while in charge of the EU presidency, an important deal-making role, is expected to cost upwards of \u20ac150 million, possibly much more. <\/p>\n

Government sources said security costs will account for a large part of that budget. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is growing concern in Government about possible ways Russia may covertly be trying to meddle in Irish…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[365,1699,681,157262,332,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-472880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-denmark","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-micheal-martin","11":"tag-movement-of-asylum-seekers","12":"tag-russia","13":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115314312118956700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}