Time for a National Maritime Security Agency to counter threats to sovereignty and safety- Michael Collins

“Forget John West-the Irish seas have more in common with the Wild West.”

Leader of Independent Ireland Michael Collins has said the time has come to dramatically increase the level of ambition being exhibited by the state with respect to its ability to counter ongoing threats to Ireland’s maritime security.

The Cork South-West TD was speaking following the latest example of foreign vessels taking advantage of unimpeded access to Ireland's vast Exclusive Economic Zone. On Friday, the Russian intelligence-gathering ship the Viktor Leonov was monitored for over 36 hours by an Air Corps maritime surveillance aircraft as it made its way through Ireland's EEZ on route to Cuba:

“Ireland’s inability to successfully monitor and counter drug smuggling at the scale required, its inability to verify intelligence gathering activity on foreign vessels and its inability to push back forcefully against vast amounts of illegal fishing in our maritime territories is an open secret on the international stage.”

“We are all aware of the pivotal role that Ireland plays in terms of the global undersea cable network connecting Europe to North America and yet despite this fact and the fact that we have over 20 major undersea cables landing on Irish shores from Kilala Bay, Ballinskelligs and Loughshinny we have absolutely nothing in terms of proposals for a Maritime Security Agency.”

“I am aware that a maritime security unit was established in the Department of Defence last year to assess threats and risks to Ireland, but astonishingly we still have nothing by way of a National Maritime Security Strategy, nor do we have a deadline for when we will have sight of it.”

“What I am saying however is that given the existential importance of the undersea cable network we really need to be thinking at a much larger scale beyond that of outsourcing the complexity and scale of these issues to a mere unit within one Department.”

“At the very least we need to examine the possibility of establishing a dedicated statutory Agency capable of coordinating and developing policy and action across departments including justice, defence and the marine.”

“It is not just a cable or security issue; I have repeatedly highlighted incidents of foreign ships threatening to ram Irish vessels including the disturbing incident in 2021 when a Castletownbere fishing trawler, the Lours De Mers, escaped a ramming attempt by a Spanish trawler, three times its size.”

“Since then, the problem of our waters being aggressively depleted by illegal fishing has remained constant despite the best efforts of authorities to increase detention rates. In fact, you can forget John West, the Irish seas now have more in common with the Wild West.”

“We are either take this matter seriously or we are going to continue witnessing our waters and territorial areas being treated like a playground for piracy.”