I wish to again raise in this House a grave issue of national security. There are three types of drone. The first type is a consumer drone. These are small, hand-held and often used by domestic enthusiasts - people who want to use them for leisure purposes. Those small consumer drones caused Dublin Airport to be closed up to eight times in 2023. According to an aviation expert last week, if one of those small consumer drones strikes an aircraft when it is coming into land, it would cause serious structural damage to the aircraft.

The next type of drone is a commercial drone, which is slightly larger. Then we have industrial-sized drones. These are the type which it is believed or alleged were operating in the flight path of Dublin Airport after President Zelenskyy's plane landed on 1 December. I am glad that his plane landed safely. However, the authorities believed that these military-grade drones represented a threat to his aircraft and that they remained in the area for up to two hours. Therefore, they were a clear and present danger and threat to all other aircraft coming in to land at Dublin Airport. It is reported that they were operating and manoeuvring up to 20 km from the airport. At that range from the airport, aircraft are descending to heights of around 3,000 or 4,000 ft, well within the operating range of military-grade drones which were considered hostile.

Why has the Government been completely silent about the reckless endangerment of the Irish travelling public and aviation safety by these drones? No warning was issued to the aviation authorities. No alert was issued to pilots, endangering thousands of Irish air passengers travelling on Aer Lingus, Ryanair or British Airways aeroplanes, etc. This is a security scandal of unprecedented proportions. If these drones were, allegedly, verified, then this is an unprecedented security scandal. If they were not or cannot be verified, then this has brought Ireland into international disrepute and ridicule.