Ireland 'unprepared' for coastal threats but could avail of EU assistance, MEP says

James Cox

Ireland is "totally underprepared" for protecting its waters and undersea cables from malicious actors, and could avail of European Union assistance, according to an Irish MEP.

The presence of Russian vessels off the Irish coast has been well documented in the last few years.

Ireland is connected to the global undersea cable network via existing cables to North America and the UK, and these are integral for everything from internet to banking services and gas pipelines.

In an interview with BreakingNews.ie, Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews said Ireland is "totally underprepared" for dealing with threats in our waters, but can avail of new support from the Connecting Europe Facility, an EU funding programme that is set to be increased from €6 billion to €30 billion.

Some of this includes funding for coastal defence.

"I'm negotiating the Connecting Europe Facility. It is a major investment, a six-time increase in investment from €6 billion to €30 billion in energey connectedness. That includes protecting vital infrastructure that is vulnerable to attack and particularly Russian interference.

"I think that will probably be voted on in the EU Parliament in June, therefore the trilogues, essentially the final negotiations, would fall during the Irish EU presidency so Ireland would bring something very special to that.

"We have 16 per cent of all EU territorial waters, we have 70 per cent of all transatlantic cables coming through Irish waters so we have a really important role to play there during the presidency to highlight that issue."

Putin threat

Mr Andrews said people who try to play down the threat from Russia should look to Russian president Vladimir Putin's comments this week in which he declared he was "ready" for war with Europe.

"Those who claim we are trying to use Russia to accelerate militarisation in Europe, they need to wake up to the reality that there are Russian naval vessels patrolling across our vital pipeline infrastructure not for any other reason than to intimidate member states of the European Union.

"We have to wake up to that reality. When he threatens war against Europe, Putin is interfering with democracies, using disinformation, intimidation in terms of our gas pipelines and cyber infrastructure.

"We just need to wake up to that reality and stop the nonsense about Europeans are going down a military road, which is unnecessary.

"This is necessary, and we just need to look at the comments from president Putin."

He pointed to other coastal nations like Denmark and their spending on defence compared to Ireland.

"We are totally underprepared for this. There are other coastal countries like Denmark, the Baltic countries, that spend a huge amount of their GNP [gross national product] on defence, and they're still vulnerable. They've still had attacks, had pipelines undermined, drone attacks on their airports and military installations.

"Denmark spends 3.5 per cent of its GNP on defence, Ireland spends 0.2 per cent of GNP on defence. We're completely underprepared for this and any support we can get from the European Union on it, we should be really eager to get it... and do everything we can to make sure we benefit from any collective procurement that is going on, any advances in technology to help us protect those waters, those cables, and all across the gas pipelines, the electricity interconnectors, all of those are vulnerable to attack."

Irish EU Presidency

Ireland will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from July 1st to December 31st, 2026.

Mr Andrews said this was an ideal time to focus on the defence of our waters, including the Connecting Europe Facility, as the next presidency of the EU will go to another coastal country, Cyprus.

"The European Treaty is very specific; it says there should be special regard to island member states in terms of energy security because we're off the coast of the continent of Europe.

"That is something that's appreciated at EU level. So while I'm negotiating the Connecting Europe Facility and the sums involved, it is something that I will be bringing to the attention of my colleagues.

"We'll have support during the Cyprus presidency too, the next one, of course, another island nation, so also very cognisant of vulnerabilities in the eastern Mediterranean and the need for interconnectedness. So we'll have 12 months of island presidencies, it's a good time for the Connecting Europe facility to go through the Parliament."