Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 April 2024
185. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence whether his Department or the Naval Service plans to conduct a security assessment on the potential of an attack on any proposed floating storage and regasification unit, during both its construction phase and after project completion; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16271/24]
View answerThe Detailed Implementation Plan for the Report of the Commission on the Defence Forces published in November 2023 builds on the publication of the Commission Report itself in February 2022, the High Level Action Plan in July 2022 and the Early Actions Update published in March 2023. This plan sets out an ambitious programme of work to move to ‘Level of Ambition 2’ (LOA 2) by 2028 and the significant and fundamental change for the Defence Forces that will be delivered across the Commission’s recommendations
One of the Early Actions identified in the High-Level Action Plan was the commencement of a Strategic Defence Review as part of the regular defence review process set out in the White Paper 2015.
The first stage of this review has been the preparation of a revised security environment assessment (SEA) conducted by an interdepartmental working group and addresses the significant security environment changes since the invasion of Ukraine. This assessment has informed the overall policy requirements, associated tasks, capability development and resourcing as part of the Strategic Defence Review. The Strategic Defence Review is due for publication later in 2024. All threats in our maritime domain will be captured in this Review.
The Defence Forces continues to maintain a threat assessment on existing critical energy infrastructure within Irish territorial waters and within our Exclusive Economic Zone.
