A Russian submarine in Irish waters shows a 'real threat' to our critical infrastructure, a security analyst has said.
Armed forces from France, Britain and Norway took part in a hunt for a suspected Russian submarine off the west coast of Ireland last week.
The Sunday Times reports aircraft from the three nations were sent to search for the Russian vessel in areas around Clare, Sligo and Donegal.
A similar ship was seen surveilling Ireland's underwater infrastructure back in 2021.
Security analyst Senator Tom Clonan told The Hard Shoulder a Russian submarine entering Irish maritime space is a concern.
"We have major critical infrastructure in our underwater environment," he said.
"We have loads of fibre optic cables that carry digital information from Ireland to the United States and from continental Europe to the United States.
"We're actually, based on our critical underwater infrastructure, the digital link between the European Union, Britain and the United States".
'Major concern'
Senator Clonan said Ireland carries "about one-third" of digital and internet traffic between the EU and the US and stores a similar amount of the EU's data in data centres here.
"This critical infrastureutre is of major strategic concern," he said.
"In addition to that all the major cables that connect continental Europe to the United States, they all pass through Irish territorial waters before they drop off the continental shelf".
Senator Clonan said he believes the reason for the Russian submarine would be "surveillance, mapping, potentially with the prospect of sabotage - because there can be no other explanation at some point in the future."
A Breguet 1150 Atlantic plane operated by the French Navy. Image: Antony Nettle / AlamySenator Clonan said the use of a Bréguet 1150 plane from France, a British Royal Air Force Boeing P-8 Poseidon and a similar Norwegian vessel shows the extent of the threat.
"The fact that they deployed those assets means that there's a real threat," he said.
"The Norwegians are busy, as are the British, surveilling their own north and north-eastern flanks because of the increase in Russian activity.
"What's interesting for us though is the only reason why we know there was a Russian submarine in our waters is because our European partners choose to tell us".
'Capacity to defend ourselves'
Senator Clonan said the incident has started a conversation about Ireland in London and other European capital cities.
"On the one-hand we proclaim ourselves to be neutral... but in order to call ourselves neutral we must have the capacity to defend ourselves in a meaningful way," he said.
"Other neutral states like Austria has a much better capacity to defend their airspace, maritime domain, their cyberspace.
"We don't have that and because we now rely on the RAF, it would seem the Norwegians and the French, we can't really say that we're sovereign in that regard.
"We can't really say that we're neutral in the real sense".
Senator Clonan added that change would require "a lot of investment" including paying our Defence Forces members a living wage.
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