Irish air defence

[junglierating]

https://www.impartialreporter.com/news/national/23510528.irish-deputy-premier-says-ireland-not-relying-raf/

 

This is interesting typical politically blah blah ....gets you Whifers excited though.

 

[noelh]

Of course there's an agreement. Nothing official of course. Worst kept secret ever. If something happens off the west coast and an airliner goes rogue or a Bear goes sightseeing along the cliffs of Moher. You can be quite sure the sonic booms of a couple of Typhoons will be heard all over Ireland. 

 

The Irish Air Club, sorry Corps has no role in air defence. It's last pure fighter was the Seafire. 

 

They don't even have primary radar. But there is now serious discussion of changing that situation. It was looked at before and even at on point acquiring light jets like the L49. But it was binned because of costs. 

 

But circumstances have changed. There's plenty of money around and maybe we might one day see a Rafale in IAC colours.😉

 

There's not much point in investing in primary radar when there's no intercept capability.

 

On the other hand it would be very useful for vectoring Typhoons onto possible bogeys. But of course there's no agreement and that would never happen.🤥🤭

[Des]

One of those thing that do not get talked about until somebody talks about them and then everybody backtracks like crazy.

 

Believe that over the years RAF Sea Kings from Valley were quite often involved in medical transfers and the like to and from Ireland without issue but did read in either a book (Nimrod Boys perhaps ?) or maybe a magazine article about a Nimrod crew involved in an extended search over Irish waters and into the Atlantic in support of internationally agreed SAR commitments getting a very "frosty" reception from Special Branch and the like when they had to land at Shannon to refuel.

[SprueMan]

It will be interesting to see if Ireland will approve the defences proposed LOA2 or 3 rating.

We might then see actual Irish fighter bombers. FA-50s, F-16s or Grippens have been mentioned in candidates.

[JohnT]

I will give that politician chappie nomination for 2023 understatement of the year if he was referring to air defence capability 

““We have limitations in terms of capacity without question, that’s not an issue.”

One way of putting it 

Whatever they decide I hope it works for them folks. It would be nice to see some Irish markings on something fast and shiny though. Grippen might make sense. 
It will come down to budget and affordability versus perceived threat risk given proximity to UK.