Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Not dead in the water, they were never part of the LoA2 recommendation.

There is talk of Tuesday's recommendation being a LoA2+ with some aspects of 3 being adopted, but realistically, there is a huge amount of fundamental structural reform needed in the DF before LoA3 becomes even possible to adopt. Maybe next decade stuff.

We're in the position of trying to play 50 years of catch-up in 5 to 10 years and at the moment we don't even have the personnel to meet establishment strength. You can see what the context of getting jets is against that.

Its LOA2 by 2028. As expected, but 2 years earlier. Plan was LOA2 by 2030, LOA3 after that, however that is outside the lifetime of this govt

How do you eat an elephant ? One bite at a time -

Say we get primary radar ....( Just to see what's out there )

And maybe move the fixed wing of the air corp off to Shannon , ( just to free up land for housing )

And then we buy a small few pc21s ( well some of the PC 9 s were getting a bit past it anyways )

And then suddenly, in a few years , getting a squadron of grippens from our neutral mates further north isn't such a big deal...

And who knows what the security situation will be in the world in 10 years time . ( Hell , who knows what it'll be next year )

According to the "SUBMISSION TO COMMISSION ON DEFENCE" - Air Policing Policy Options for Ireland 

If the government purchased 8 X PC9s itd cost ~ €8m pa, but 8 X FA-50 light combat interceptors come in at ~ €20m pa.

Lets face it, subsonic turbo prop a\c with zero intercept abilities versus the same quantity of Super sonic capable and intercept capable a\c, which are fitted with 90% of 4th Gen fighter sensors could seamlessly work and give meaning to our new primary radar capability, for an extra €12m pa, it is a no brainer.

What good is having primary radar if all we can do is look and "See whats out there"....but not be able to actually do anything about it if it were an aggressive incursion.

Imagine what the public reaction to that would be...."Ye spend an extra €500,000,000 pa on our defence and as soon as theres an actual threat to our sovereign airspace all ye can do is wave at it as it flies above yere heads".

Not to mention the optics of it to our EU \ UK neighbors, who are the ones currently allowed into our airspace to intercept any unknown a\c because as usual we cant do it for ourselves but go cap in hand looking for freebies.

Itd be a waste of €8m for a\c of the PC9 capabilities, or lack of.

The Gripen is without doubt a better machine and it looks damn good too, but to keep everyone happy and to show theyre conscious of the cost to the tax payer, the FA50 would be much more palletable.

But whose to say, once the feet are under the table as it were, we may "have to" upgrade our combat a\c to a Gripen type fighter at some point !

I for one would love to see it, itd be great for us to have an air force to be proud of that can stand on its own 2 feet and provide quality over-watch to our sovereign territories, instead of always being the poor happy go lucky neighbor always looking for the cheap dig out.

Yes I under stand that thoroughly thanks, and the costings as outlined ie PC9 v FA50 are still the same irrespective of who writes them down.

Again, the FA50 is useless to us. Neither fish nor fowl.

Too advanced for an entry level trainer, lacking the range and toughness for north Atlantic intercepts.

The hell with it we go for the Rafales. We can get a good deal on second hands and the french will do a good PCP payment plan

They aren't ditching the FA50s, the Gripen/F16 will be working alongside them. The final decision has not yet been made.

Not to mention the ICBM base in Abbeyshrule.

Nobody tells me nothin.

Its impossible to do anything quicker. I disagree with some of the phasing outlined in the HLAP, but in terms of the DF having very little capacity to expand at the moment, the retention crisis and a clear recruitment plan to enable enhanced capabilities are an unavoidable first step.

There’s also of course the fact that pretty much everyone in the West is ramping up procurement or equipment and stores post Ukraine, so if we are going shopping for anything it might be a case of get in the queue. Saw an article that suggests the Radar procurement might be kicking off sooner rather than later, be interesting to see who bids and the timescale, ideally the MRV finally gets **** ordered.

well, I can not say i am too surprised by recent announcements. At least they are getting started at the bottom and dealing with pay and conditions. looks like a radar system is about all we will get this time around. The jets are a good 10 years off by the look of things. They might get a few trainer jets craft in the meantime. Choppers could be more in people's minds at the department of defence.

Firstly, nobody is going to be shooting anything off the coast with long range missiles. Put it out of your head completely. It's like bringing a samurai sword to a pub because you heard it's a bit rough. Yeah you'll feel safer, but you'll also draw more unwanted attention, and if you actually had to use it, are you prepared for what may happen once you draw blood?

Amongst the many things we do need to upgrade is the 40 year old SHORAD we have. The reason being, we occasionally host International political summits, and we need to be able to secure the airspace in the immediate vicinity from asymmetric attack, either by suicide drone or hijacked aircraft. Its a doomsday scenario, but its the bare minimum expected for these events, in the absence of CAP.

Whenever we do get these Primary radar (careful with terminology) and we figure out who operates them and formulate an immediate action in the event of a "bogey" I would not be surprised to see a non-NATO EU air force (that narrows it down) asked to provide temporary Air Policing.

Let's not forget, for years the swiss were doing it 9-5, mon to fri until there was just such an incident. After which they went 24 Hr with their F18s, which may soon be replaced with F35.

As for Naval, I can see us buying something 2nd hand but modern and lean manned in the short term, as the P50s wear out, and the MRV project gets filed away with all the other good ideas that never materialised. (Puma/Super Puma, Medium Lift Heli, Light frigate, 2nd P30 class, P2000 CPVs, Mowag Eagles, Alpha Jets etc).