Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

You obviously don't understand what you're talking about.

Drones have many practical uses in air policing and defence. Replacing those tasks performed by fast jets, ie, quick reaction alert, interception and interdiction, air superiority and humint recon, is not any of those.

A football coach has a player on his team who is squandering his talents. The coach says: "Whats wrong with you, are you ignorant or just apathetic?" The player replies: "I dont know and I dont care".

Well mainly as the French don’t have a domestic version of such a drone, so how could we buy it off them. But also why?

what interception capabilities does Ireland have at the moment?

a phone line to the U.K…

if the political will is there.

But its not. And that is the problem.

Though I still wonder why the fixation on the Minister of the day

There is no fixation on her, I already said its the government in general, going back decades.

and the culture of the departments (defence, finance and DPER) that are the main stumbling blocks.

I know. Ive said as much numerous times.

And no, not since 1922. In the 1970s we had a few de Havilland Vampire jets in the air corps. Today we have no jets.

@Timeofyourlife firstly any conceivable scenario would only see Ireland targeted as part of a wider war. It is highly unlikely that Ireland would face a “full on” attack. A squadron of jet fighters, gen 4.5, is expensive, but actually not as expensive as people think. Fighter squadrons cost a couple of billion, but…that is spread over a fighters lifetime of 30 years, but that price includes maintainence, weaponry, parts, etc. Each year standing up a squadron of modern jets costs about 200million per year. Considering the defence budget is about 1.3 billion at present, adding on a jet squadron would not exactly massively increase it. Even a couple of squadrons would only come in at the small change out of an annual Irish government expenditure of 100 billion. That said, Ireland has a LOT more pressing defence priorities. I think drones are useful but not the super weapon people think. Actually more of the PC9s or better the super tucano would give Ireland a lot of ground attack, and anti-ship capacity, very cheap to fly and maintain and with much greater loiter time than a jet. Good medium range GBAD could keep aerial threats at bay from Irish airspace. A gen 4.5 QRA squadron would be nice but let’s be frank, it would be solving a problem for the Uk, not Ireland. The bear bombers are not targeting Ireland and even if they did QRA is only making them fire their standoff missiles from a bit farther away.

Oh dear lord above, you are actually trying to suggest that a half a dozen first generation jet trainers, with no integrated C&C or detection capability were somehow a sign of a serious defence position. The word you are looking for is "TOKENISM", that's all that it was. Same as ever other hardware purchase for the DF since 1922.

It's amazing how so many other nations with similar total budgets and or population size manage to do something so impossible then…

Sometimes you wonder why people waste half their evening giving gobshites serious answers. Feck off, use Google and educate yourselves.

F-15 EX unit cost is €120 million. Thats a bare bones figure.

Starting from a zero base, the acquisition of 10 planes, and armaments, simulators and consumables, plus the construction of suitable hangars and service accommodation, and the recruitment of 30 pilots and 50 to 70 technicians would be a €2.5 Billion Euro exercise.

Minimum.

Which is why im nolonger contributing to this thread. Pie in the sky only some posters are under the impression we can't afford the pie or that a cycleway from Athlone to Offaly has a higher importance. Its depressing really.

you are right of course, but to give some context not everyone comes to this page for reasoned debate and discussion of defence matters, there are a LOT of trolls from time to time, and it gets frustrating for some of the people with detailed knowledge on here (I don’t have that much detailed knowledge), to reprise points of information they have rehearsed many times in the past. A couple of people may have hastily judged you, but hopefully the spirit of education and fair debate can triumph!