{"id":497215,"date":"2025-10-13T22:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T22:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/497215\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T22:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T22:20:13","slug":"national-security-must-be-debatable-amid-growing-russian-threats-says-richmond-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/497215\/","title":{"rendered":"National security must be debatable amid growing Russian threats, says Richmond \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politicians in Ireland must be able to debate security and defence issues affecting the State without always being accused of being \u201cobsessed with the military-industrial complex\u201d, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Neale Richmond<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re talking about our own family homes, we don\u2019t think anything about getting a house alarm,\u201d he told the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly<\/a> (BIPA), which was meeting in Weybridge in Surrey, England, on Monday.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s geographic location is no protection from cyber and hybrid threats orchestrated by Russia<\/a>, the Fine Gael<\/a> politician told the parliamentary assembly, which includes politicians from Ireland, Britain, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, our geographic position had been seen by many to mitigate our security risks. But in the age of online connectivity, this is quite simply no longer the case,\u201d he told the assembly.<\/p>\n

Russia<\/a> has embarked on \u201can increasingly reckless and intensified hybrid campaign against Europe, including sabotage, attempts at electoral interference, spreading disinformation, cyberattacks, and disruption of critical infrastructure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, he said, politicians should not be afraid to debate security and defence issues, despite the evidence that just 1 per cent of people in the Republic place security at the top of their list of their concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be able to talk about the security of our countries without someone driving us down the rabbit hole that somehow we\u2019re obsessed with the military-industrial complex or [having] obscure conversations about how one defines neutrality,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n

Ireland is \u201cmilitarily neutral, but we are not politically neutral\u201d, he said, and \u201cwe remain steadfast in our support for Ukraine<\/a> to help it defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 10-year-old Ireland-UK memorandum of understanding on defence co-operation \u201ccontinues to work well\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cListening to the media, it\u2019s a novelty to some people that this actually exists, but it\u2019s no secret that it\u2019s something that works well\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe memorandum of understanding has been up and running for 10 years, it\u2019s worked well, and provides an absolute template of what can come next,\u201d the Minister of State told the Assembly.<\/p>\n

The European Union was \u201cacting with decisiveness, ambition, and speed\u201d to counter Russian threats, he said: \u201cIreland, therefore, must be a part of this process because we are part of the EU, but also because such threats pose existential risks to the way we live our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting that the world had changed since BIPA was set up in 1990, former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Paul Murphy said he was \u201cnot quite sure\u201d every jurisdiction represented in the assembly \u201chave quite got to grips\u201d with the challenges, including the British.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threats now are very different. The real unpleasant actors don\u2019t play by the rules any more,\u201d he said, pointing to the damage done by a Russian cyberattack in Estonia that \u201cdevastated\u201d IT systems in schools, infrastructure, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that we have to be very conscious that the people who are nasty people in this world won\u2019t take into account any constitutions, or international agreements. They play by different rules.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Politicians in Ireland must be able to debate security and defence issues affecting the State without always being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[13515,1699,60970,135634,1144,332,9041,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-497215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-common-ground","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-fine-gael","11":"tag-neale-richmond","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-ukraine-crisis","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115369189174493574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497215","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=497215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}