The Ministry of Defence has said UK military aircraft do not enter Irish sovereign airspace for operational purposes without the express agreement of the Irish Government, following a parliamentary question on air interception arrangements between the two countries, the department stated.
The issue was raised by Carla Lockhart, Democratic Unionist Party MP for Upper Bann, who asked what arrangements exist between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland for intercepting unidentified or hostile aircraft operating in Irish airspace. Responding on behalf of the government, Defence Minister Al Carns said access to Irish airspace is handled through established diplomatic processes in line with international norms.
“Access to Irish airspace is managed through extant diplomatic channels as per international norms with clearance being requested and granted for state aircraft under set conditions,” he said.
Carns added that UK military aircraft do not operate within Irish sovereign airspace without prior political approval from Dublin.
“UK Military aircraft do not enter the sovereign airspace of Ireland for operational purposes, without the express prior agreement of the Irish Government,” he said.
The minister said matters relating to sovereign airspace access ultimately rest with individual states, adding that questions on Irish regulations should be directed to the Irish authorities.
The response comes amid long-standing discussion over how air security is managed around Ireland, which has operated for decades without a fast-jet interception capability able to respond to high-speed unidentified aircraft.
For much of the post-war period, an understanding has existed allowing the Royal Air Force to respond when aircraft enter the Flight Information Region for which Ireland is responsible and fail to communicate with civil air traffic control. That arrangement, referenced in previous UK Defence Journal reporting, is understood to form part of a broader memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation between London and Dublin, periodically refreshed through bilateral engagement.
The arrangement does not constitute UK responsibility for Irish air defence. Instead, it is framed primarily around aviation safety, particularly within one of Europe’s busiest transatlantic flight corridors, where unidentified or non-transponding aircraft present collision risks to civilian traffic. UK officials have consistently maintained that any RAF activity is conducted with Irish consent and is focused on identification and air traffic safety rather than territorial defence. In practice, intercept missions allow controllers to establish visual identification of unknown aircraft, enabling civil authorities to re-route commercial flights and maintain a safe recognised air picture.
Irish governments have faced domestic political pressure to clarify the nature of the cooperation, particularly given Ireland’s long-standing policy of military neutrality. However, both states have continued regular dialogue on air, maritime and critical infrastructure security, reflecting shared operational risks despite differing defence postures.
The MOD response reiterates the UK position that while cooperation exists, sovereignty over Irish airspace remains entirely with the Irish Government, and any military activity is subject to explicit diplomatic approval on a case-by-case basis.
Did you here the one about the Irish Fighter Pilots ? 🤔😉
Nein, except for the ones in the RAF in the Battle of Britain. All survived.
Take a look at Brendan Finucane, a RAF legend 👏
All sensible.
As said in the article, we are not defending the Irish for them. This gives time and opportunity for QRA assets to reach targets inbound to the UK, be they military or civilian.
If civilian, downing an airliner over the Irish sea which has long been intercepted is preferable to over land. If we wait, how many minutes before the target is over the UK. Not long.
This way, the target is long since intercepted, refused to cooperate or contact the QRA, ignored warning shots, and the decision taken by London in good time while over water.
And OT, hopefully this governments ridiculous deal regards Deigo Garcia is unravelling now Trump has retaliated to Starmer.
Give the bloody thing to the Americans and save the defence budget literally billions.
We barely use it. We now have no ships stationed in the ME for the first time in decades.
Not worth that money.
Absolutely, I can see no reason to carry on with this ridiculous deal and the vast waste of valuable £Billions that this would cost.
So how does that make us different to Trump over Greenland, Russia over Crimea or china over Taiwan?
Ha, I knew you would bite !!!!
It’s OK Jim, I won’t go over this again, It’s been done to death hasn’t it !
They aren’t pretending it’s about virtue or international morality. They’re acting bluntly in what they see as their national interest. We, on the other hand, are proposing to spend billions to downgrade our own strategic position, and then congratulate ourselves for being morally superior in a world that doesn’t reward this.
So the difference is this: they are honest about power and self interest. We wrap self harm in the language of righteousness and call it statesmanship.
Well said.
BBC currently running an article that also shows the possible costs. £35,000,000,000.00 being one government forcast.
That is Priti Patels made up number and includes 200 years of inflation then it was doubled for good measures. It’s a nonsense figure.
It gets better every time you say that 😁
Plenty of sources on how Starmer misled Parliament, reduced the figure from 35 billion to 3.5 billion, then told the blob to fiddle it again.
We give away soveriegn territory, and are paying for the privilege, out of the defence budget, for a country currently treating ENATO and us like dirt, so they can use it.
All the while ignoring the Chagosians themselves.
Beautifully expressed. The difference is we are not Putin’s Russia, Xi’s Communist China, or a ‘here today gone tomorrow’ politician. The numbers of countries around the globe the United Kingdom brought to independence speaks for itself.
We aren’t Putin, but an international court as ruled we illegally kicked out the locals. Either we follow international law even when it applies to us being in the wrong or we accept that it doesn’t apply and lose any moral high ground next time another similar act to Ukraine war happens.
To make the lease of the airbase legally after we hand the islands back an amount /rental needs to be paid, and the amount is less than we pay for similar bases around the world (people keep quoting the overall 99 year cost rather than the annual which isn’t so bad) but politically I am unclear on why we couldn’t have agreed on something lower to make it less controversial.
Saying that now that trump is messing us over with tarrifs over Greenland, maybe we can say we’ll if you want your stealth bombers based there you have to compensate for the rental cost.
False equivalence is your friend. ‘International law’ exists in any form because people in these islands ensured the defeat of fascism. Comparing this country with Putin’s Russia says everything about your weak grasp of international events.
It’s simply the wrong deal at the wrong cost with the wrong result for the Islanders and the British Tax payers.
The Chargosians are not Mauritian though, so us kicking them out shouldn’t mean it belongs to Mauritius.
Not to mention no Mauritian has even even stepped on the islands.
Do you need ships stationed in the Middle East when you have a massive airbase in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
What does £100 million a year buy you in defence terms? Not much, that’s roughly what the MoD pay Palantir each year for data analytics it’s around the same cost as a battalion of light infantry.
Of course you do. It is the optics as much as anything. The UK withdraws from the world, and somebody will fill the vacum.
That is like the RAF saying the RN does not need Carriers! All assets complement the other.
France is already looking, reportedly, in upping their game in the Gulf.
£100 million a year. If you look at wider defence contracts not many have bigger values over decades. And even if it is “just” a Battalion of Light Infantry, which I think might be cheaper 😉 then that at least is a Battalion of Infantry we can utilise which now cannot exist.
It is so, so poor.
I worked on a British Overseas Territories document focussed on conservation: fun fact, Blighty is responsible for safe guarding an awful lot of coral! It turns out that long ago Brits jumped ashore for a sailing ship I wouldn’t cross the serpentine aboard, and stuck the Union flag in some pimple and claimed it for George I, II, or III. Whitehall would love to give them up since we can’t use them but the argument down the centuries is that if we do, who will grab them? You’d be amazed at the number and ever increasing duty of care this imposes upon Blighty.
The Chagos ‘deal’ is terrible. We cleared all the islands because the Yanks insisted. The Chagosians are a deal smarter than Starmer and Lammy – Oh, never! I hear you cry! – and don’t want to fall into the clutches of Mauritius (a mere one thousand miles away) and one of the world’s rapidly expanding corrupt client states of Xi in Beijing. Let the Chagos Islanders return I say. The bloody place will nowadays be watched night and day by satellites and monitored constantly. Secret? I saw recently satellite photographs of Stealth Bombers parked up there published online! Secret base my bum!
What forces does the UK operate from the massive airbase the middle of the Indian Ocean?
The ships in the question is a good one given the other massive airbase in Qatar, and other places.
Maybe someone else could pay the £100M a year or otherwise stop moaning.
Not sure what this has to do with Irish airspace, but, ‘hey-ho’.
“OT” is Off Topic, It normally happens when such a topic is not covered on a site that reports similar events.
Surely having been here for as long as you have, you will have noticed things going “OT” ?
If not, stick around, as i’m sure things will become clearer later !😁
It’s a Forward Operating Base. The island has no permanent military aircraft stationed on it. However when needed you can send as many planes as required.
See Ascension Island in 1982 for more details
Before long 100m won’t even buy an above average footballer!
Hi M8, I am 100% in favour of us sticking 2 fingers up at Mauritius and their Chinese backers but I wouldn’t just hand it over to the US, make a deal that works for all parties.
I’d firstly involve the Chagosians who we displaced and try to do the right thing by them after all they are the only folks with any legitimate claim to the place. They may just fancy the idea of getting a deal like the US Marshall islanders with their “Compact of free Association” with both the UK and US.
I’d take a leaf out of Chinas playbook and do a bit of land reclamation on one of the other Atols such as Egremont or Ile du coin and let them settle there if they want to (better weather than Crawley).
Meanwhile we sit down and do a deal with US but as a joint ownership agreement, the BIOT is just huge and is pretty well left alone so why just give it away when we have no idea of the resources there.
You are right of course mate. My comment was flippant and made in pure irritation.
I agree completely, analysis and solution. It seems really straight forward. Why has this sihtshow been allowed to happen?
Because just think of the soft power. Just imagine what sort of trade deals we will get with Africa because we caved into Mauritius’s demands.
Yep I would now just use it to string out our US relationship a bit longer and get something from it…
Give nothing to the Americans, they already want to much
Whilst I appreciate the argument, and would’ve supported it under Biden, for example, recent statements from Trump suggest that we probably shouldn’t be handing an overseas European territory to the Americans in this political climate.
Daniele, I have never been so appreciative of a Trump comment. Giving away British sovereign territory used for military purposes and perversely also giving away £billions (far more than is reasonable for a lease) as well made no sense. The 2019 conclusion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was just an advisory opinion and not a binding judgement.
If the ICJ were to rule on the Falklands they might come to a similar view and Starmer would hand sovereignty to Argentina and lease-back, much as the Thatcher government (with envoy Nick Ridley) wanted to do so before April 1982.
Sell it to the American colony and tell their Emperor he can have exclusive mineral rights, he will easily be convinced he will find “raw earths” there.
Is it me, or are the adverts on UKDJ gettng more and more obtrusive?
I use DuckDuckGo as my browser for websites like this, and other aites that are literally riddled with Ads. In most cases ads on this site account for well over half the viewable content.
It’s bugged me so much over the years, I’m finding that I use Chrome, Safari and Edge less and less.
DuckDuckGo has a native ad blocker, blocks most cookies, blocks tracking to some degree and way more. It’s search engine isn’t as powerful as Google (or as restrictive) so I often go from one browser to the other based on the need and what I want to view.
Hope that helps you and others make slightly more informed decisions on the browser of choice, based on the need.
Cheers
M@
Try Quant sir ^.^
Ah Spock was banging on about this yesterday, he doesn’t use any Ad Blockers It seems !
Personally, I never see anything other than the Article and all the lovely uninterupted comments 🙂
“lovely” comments? You sure we’re on the same site? 😂
Mabye I’ve got it all wrong.. maybe people come here FOR the ads… And defence speak is just a happy coincidence in the background.
All doom and gloom these days anyway, perhaps the ads are there to be a distraction!
M@
Yup, It’s a cradle of love and a rather friendly place full of amazing “Members”. 😉
Tell me more mate, ad blockers you say??
What are they and which isle in Tesco’s, cleaning products or somewhere else??
Ha yes, next to the Mr Muscle Drain Un-blocker.
Yust pour it over your keyboard and wait for the smoke to clear.
Hey Presto, no more Adds.
A valid question asked by a very good constituency MP(mine👍)
What codswallop. If the UK received intelligence that Air-to-Surface attack was going to come in over Irish airspace, or an aircraft was hijacked and/or persistenly refused to respond. The RAF would be over Eire without blinking.
So no harm in clearing it ahead of time for such an eventuality? It is the same thing.
And if that intelligence arrived late in the day and the aircraft is already entering Irish Airspace before QRA launch? The RAF need not wait for it to “emerge” on the other side, but has already intercepted.
Seems sensible to me.
So we police thier air space for free because thay can not be arsed to, seems a great idea. Strange a country thats is always sticking its nose in UK matters is on a freebee. Every one just laughs at us now we are used by every one and just too daft to see it.
Every one walks all over use or uses us for thier advantage, weal, weak government.
And to get to Irish air space you either have cross ours or Frances or arrive by sea, just add it to comfort letters sent to terrorists. Why we suck up to them after the way they shaft us when ever they can is sad.
Being “neutral” in WWII or now in the 21st Century, makes no sense at all for any Nation claiming to care about humanity.
I note the DUP didn’t ask about how the same applies when AC operates in NI. Anyway at least the French have for the contract for the Primary Radars.
Do you actually carry out intercepts over the north then? We know your helicopters etc sometimes come across the border but that wasn’t the question she asked was it?
I guess they can throw potatoes at their invaders.
You don’t get any help when the —- hits the fan, you can’t pick and choose what you want.
Just like Spain who won’t allow British military aircraft through their airspace.
Starmer needs to go to a garden centre and buy some grow backs for his tiny nuts.
Come on Mr Trump. Tariffs on Ir3land unless they spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence. Freeloaders for too long….
Not in NATO so what leg would he have to stand on, or rather care. Particularly as Ireland buys European hardware not American.