Interesting articles

ah, the contractor band-aid..

In fairness, they should just accept it, and negotiate a contract with others to get a reduction on cost.

Will be interesting to see how many go for the new commissioned roles. While pay will be less than industry, Ireland can be quite competitive in the private sector, so anyone who doesn't want to leave Ireland, it could be a good option.

Will be tough work for someone who has done 10-15 years in civvy land to join and put up with Military guff on top of trying to deliver projects though.

And so, all the chickens have finally come home to roost.

That may well be what happens. That any summits during the presidency are held in Brussels, and Ireland chair them, and no more.

I read the article as based on informed leaks - clearly someone trying to call BS on a lot of the guff we hear. I would have thought it better we hold these EU events here if possible- better chance of additional resources to DF - but the gap is too big to bridge to get all that would be required.

I note reference to Munster as a venue for a summit (somewhere in Cork given MM is currently Tao ?). Maybe Drumoland given it has held these type events before if it is held here?

We will see an announcement regarding a new primary radar system in the next few weeks. It’s in yesterday’s cttee hearing, but it seems it will be a number of years before fully functioning .

I see the DoD has about €90m of Capex still to spend this month and next to hit the annual budgeted amount. I presume govt Jet, radar down payment , infrastructure and a few other bits and bobs will see to that?

Ah Doonbeg…wouldn't be out of place as a setting for a H.P Lovecraft story…

ha ha, it had actually crossed my mind, but there is no way they would look at it for obvious reasons. Could you imagine, the owner would probably gate crash the party !! Some American guy I believe. From an actual security POV it probably has a lot of advantages, which I’m sure will be put to good use over the next three years or so I’d say…

How in the name of god have they managed to make such a balls up of this?

clearly the Journal article forced a rebuttal, not a surprise that we are going cap in hand, but interesting no mention of air coverage. Will it also be French or the RAF? Wonder how many promotions will be given out to the DOD staff for their abject failure?

Embarrassing but we deserve to be embarrassed.

I would much rather have the EU say very publicly that Ireland cannot protect itself and therefore we will have no meetings in Ireland.

Joke of a country.

Sure we can slap a irish tricolour on the Bretagne and say its ours like the Garda sticker on the German Puma in the 80s

I wouldn't bet against them being involved as well, a) because you have the "not EU" group meeting as well that we need to secure and b) if you look at the scale of what's being deployed currently it's multinational. The Brits have just announced a deployment to Belgium to help them, and that's on top of the Germans deploying to help as well, and I think the French.

Given we seem to be bringing nothing to the table, its going to need plenty of others to cover our arses.

Agreed, no problem at all with other countries filling reasonable gaps for large events.

It's the unreasonableness of Ireland's defence spending and preparedness just to do the basics versus all our neighbours and particularly Eastern European countries that has been turning sour.

This could turn nasty if things deteriorate with Russia. There'll be honest direct words for countries not shaping up when it comes to defence and there very well could be consequences.

They'll be shaming us to take our own defence seriously.

It's even more grating when our merry band of delusional halfwit peaceniks, like our incoming head of state, pontificate, lecture and talk absolute shite on public platforms about what countries under direct threat should and shouldn't be doing. It's absurd, annoying but mostly embarrassing.

no surprise they are fed up of the delays form the U.K. on the NMH, and given they are last ones in, it’s either pick them or abandon the project, why stall as they have?

Quite the discrepancy between finance and defense there. Im assuming we're starting to get real (tangible) kick back at EU level over defense if this is what's starting to trickle out.

Harris promises to use EU loans if military funding is not forthcoming

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/11/10/harris-promises-to-use-eu-loans-if-military-funding-is-not-forthcoming/

Its all Harris backers leaking to a blueshirt audience that he's being bolshie on the side of defence investment.

But in point of fact, Harris knows better than anyone that the defence architecture in this State could not absorb 3.4Bn of capital spending in the next 5 years.

As we've said in this forum over countless years and with countless examples, we do not have the capacity to scope, manage and deliver enough projects in parallel that would cost 3.4Bn or anything like it.

Be under no illusion, neither DoD nor DPER had any real intention of blocking over 3.4Bn of Capex for the period to 2030.

And Harris talking about the EU 150Bn fund is more bullsh1t. It was already stated in recent months that it would he cheaper for Ireland to borrow on the sovereign markets than the rates attached to the EU fund. So he's not going to do that either, because cabinet would never let him commit to borrowings over the odds for no reason.