Tom Clonan

Obviously, we won't have this investment in place by, you know, in two weeks time when

when we're going to be de facto holding the presidency.

But we will, you know, Minister McEntee and other senior figures in government have announced that we're going to have international cooperation and collaboration with our European and probably British partners to assist in our security.

And

That's something that we need a little bit more information about.

Last week in the Defence and National Security Committee, we had the Cypriot ambassador in to talk about what happened in Cyprus during their presidency.

So he told the committee that they were attacked by Iranian missiles and drones in March 2020.

And they had to close their airspace and close their airports for up to a number of weeks.

And that really interrupted their presidency of the European Union.

And it came at a great kind of commercial and tourism cost to Cyprus.

But I asked them which nations assisted them.

So it's all on the record, like the British side.

The Royal Navy, the French, the Dutch, the Greeks assisted them.

But interestingly, he confirmed to the committee that when those nations, those NATO members took action in Cypriot airspace and in their maritime domain, like, for example, they carried out airstrikes in Lebanon, they were not consulted.

So the Cypriots had no knowledge as presidents of the EU.

They weren't consulted.

They weren't informed.

They had no prior knowledge of the actions that NATO allies took, you know, as part of their defence.

So just as a parliamentarian and as a member of the Security Committee, I would like

if we had some parliamentary oversight of what the defence arrangements are, even if that was in closed session, so that we understand how we're going to secure our air and maritime domain and also to make sure that that, you know, doesn't, you know, have any constitutional or sovereignty issues.