RAF and Royal Navy provide security for EU defence summit in Wicklow
The Irish government required the RAF and Royal Navy to protect a summit of EU defence ministers in County Wicklow this week – but the Royal Navy had to stay 14 miles out to see as required by the Irish Constitution.
EU defence ministers met at the Druids Glen Resort on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine as well as covering “gaps” in European security in the face of Russian aggression.
The UK deployed a Royal Navy air-defence frigate and Merlin sub-hunter helicoper to provide security, as revealed by the Irish Times.
The Irish constitution requires British ships stay 14 miles out to sea. It is understood the Irish military worked around the legal exclusion zone by placing an Irish liaison officer on board the UK vessel to give final authorisation to fire long-range weapons, if necessary.
UUP MLA and former Royal Navy Submarine Commander, Steve Aiken, says Russia always has a clear interest in knowing where and when it could find all the EU's defence ministers in once place at the same time.
"The vital discussions on European security in Wicklow underline the very real threats our continent faces from Putin and his fellow travellers,” he told the News Letter.
“The need for Europe to step up further in providing air defence to the near continuous drone and missile attacks hitting the Ukraine every day should be concentrating minds.
"Paradoxically, many of those Russian attack drones and missiles will be made of aluminum - with much of Russian sourced aluminum coming from Ireland; add to that, because Ireland has freeloaded on defence for decades, the air defence of todays meeting is provided by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The least the Irish government could do is thank the United Kingdom for keeping us safe - again."
The News Letter invited the The Irish Department of Defence and Armed Forces to respond to his comments.
As a neutral country, The Republic is not part of NATO, which has complicated security arrangements.
There was a security scare during Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Dublin in December after unidentified drones were flown near his flightpath.
Kaja Kallas, the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, chaired Wednesday’s summit.
Both she and Irish Defence Minister Helen McEntee were were pressed about the Republic’s record as one of the lowest defence spenders in Europe.
When questioned about Ireland’s defence budget, Ms Kallas said: “I haven’t looked into Ireland’s budget.”
Told it was 0.2% of GDP, she said: “Well yes, yeah.”
Ms Kallas added: “Ireland is a neutral country and that’s why the defence spending has been lower and you [Ireland] have much better neighbours than some other European countries have.”
Responding to questions on whether Ireland was spending enough, Ms McEntee said: “What I can assure people is that our funding will continue to increase.”
And asked about the UK providing defence for the summit, she said: “I won’t get into security details, but what I can say is we have a significant security operation in place.”
Ms Kallas also announced a new high-level defence group of senior political and military leaders from the EU, UK and Ukraine “to cover the gaps in Europe’s conventional power within Nato that we have identified”.