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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
The government will have new powers in place before the 1st of July to allow the Naval Service board Russian Shadow Fleet vessels in Irish waters. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Helen McEntee, has said there are large illegal tankers from Russia quite literally traversing our waters. So how would this power work?
Tom Clonin is with me, security analyst, independent senator and former army officer. Good morning, Tom.
Good morning, Clare.
Do you think this power is needed or wanted?
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Chapter 2: What new powers will the Irish government implement regarding Russian vessels?
Well, I mean, I would welcome the passage of this legislation. I just saw the Shannon schedule. I think it's going through to committee stage on Wednesday. It's a miscellaneous provisions bill to just enhance the powers of enforcement that the Naval Service had have. So so just for the listeners, Ireland has a huge maritime footprint.
We have almost 1 million square kilometres of maritime domain that we patrol for the European Union. 880,000 square kilometres. It's 15% of the EU's waters.
And where we are on the western fringe, you have this basically a continuing rotating convoy of what are called shadow fleet tankers, you know, breaching the oil embargo and assisting Vladimir Putin in his kind of war machine against Ukraine.
Chapter 3: Why are large illegal tankers from Russia a concern for Ireland?
Tom, we're coming into our presidency of the EU, Ireland taking the reins for the next six months from July. Do you think we should read anything into the timing of this legislation?
Yeah, I think Minister McEntee is sending a signal to our European partners that we're taking our defence seriously. Now, unfortunately, the reality is that for such a large maritime domain, we only at the moment have two naval vessels that can deploy to sea. And so there are challenges there for us.
I mean, a lot of this activity, the Russian Shadow Fleet activity, is taking place in the Atlantic, off the west and southwest of the Irish coast. But we also have, after President Zelensky's visit last December, we had an alleged industrial-grade drone incident off Hoth. on the incoming flight path of aircraft coming into Dublin Airport.
So that means that we probably will have to have a naval presence off the capital during many of the kind of keynote events, just to assist in the security of our airspace and maritime domain there.
So that means, you know, you have one vessel then off the west coast to monitor the Russian shadow fleet and one vessel on the east, you know, to participate in a combined security operation with Angarda Sheikhan and the Air Corps.
So we need more powers and the government has decided that we need more powers. We also need more personnel and more equipment.
Yeah, and there is an ambitious plan of investment that's underway. 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.
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Chapter 4: How will the new powers enhance the Naval Service's enforcement capabilities?
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.
All right. It's going to be an interesting six months ahead from the 1st of July. Independent Senator Tom Clonin, thank you for joining us.
The Clare Byrne Show with Aviva Insurance. Weekday mornings at 9 on Newstalk. Conversation that counts.