asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement regarding the incident off the Donegal coast when an object resembling a missile was fired from a point north of Tory Island and which subsequently passed over County Donegal.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Donegal Coast Incident.
6.
I am not in possession of sufficient information to make a statement on the matter referred to by the Deputy. It has not been established what the object reported sighted might have been, or where it might have come from. Investigations are continuing.
Is the Minister at liberty to give us the information which he might have in his brief, limited though it may be?
I do not have any information. There was a report that two men working on a bog heard a gushing noise and saw a rocket-shaped object passing over them at high speed. That is all the information we have.
The Minister gives the impression in his answer, maybe not intentionally, that the Department of Foreign Affairs might not be taking it too seriously. Would he accept that one of the two people who heard this and who described it so aptly is a member of the Garda Síochána and he is quite adamant that this object passed from a point north of Tory Island over Donegal and disappeared into the mountains? Does the Minister share my concern that foreign powers may be using our territorial waters as a training ground? Does he share my concern that the object which was seen could damage life and property? Could he outline the Government's policy in relation to the use of our waters by foreign powers as training grounds?
We have no evidence that the object in question, whatever it was, was discharged from within our waters or from where it was discharged. We have not any information and, consequently I cannot comment on the implication in the Deputy's supplementary that this was a missile of some type discharged across our airspace. There is no information to support that implication. Obviously, the Government would be worried if any such activities are taking place but, on the bare facts of this particular incident, this object was seen by only these two men. There were no other sightings reported and there is no information as to where its flight terminated or originated. I think this will have to join the long and inconclusive list of UFOs.
Will the Minister state what steps the Department propose to take to find out where this object may have landed in Donegal?
If it landed in Donegal and if it was travelling at a high speed as it crossed the two people who observed it, one would imagine it would have made an impact and would have been reported. There is no report that it landed in Donegal. There have been no other reports of this sighting except from the two men concerned. I take it one of them is a trained observer and I am sure the other man is equally observant but no one else has reported the sighting and there have been no reports of the termination of the flight within this jurisdiction.
Do the Government propose to make any representations to the Governments of the foreign powers who could be in the area? Obviously those foreign powers are very limited. Does the Minister propose to make representations to his counterparts in those Governments informing them that they do not have permission at any time to use our territorial waters as a training ground. I and other people in the area firmly believe that foreign powers are using our territorial waters. This may be a very cheap lesson for us and it is something the Minister and the Department might pursue and investigate fully.
The Government are not aware that our territorial waters have been used by any other nation for training or for any other purposes but if we became aware a protest in the strongest manner would be made. It is unthinkable that any power would do such a thing but if the Deputy has any information to that effect coming from sources in his constituency we would be very glad to have it.