Fighter jets for the Air Corps?

Can't defend against one aircraft...

Can't put ships to sea

But all good. Nothing to see. Head in sand as normal.

I said it was meaningless. You can say your points are factually correct. That doesn't make them so.

Of course we feckin aren't.

Go give your head a wobble and inform yourself.

Just listen to Varadkar and Martin's pronouncements since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine; 'we cannot be politically neutral' or words to that effect. And I hate to be the one to break it to you, but neutrality is political as well as military. Without either its redundant.

What Ireland is, is militarily non-aligned and even that is an increasingly untenable description, as our own territorial and infrastructural sovereignty is threatened by actors of malign intent and we must seek assistance from Countries with whom we already have an intimate cultural and economic relationship.

Your posts show that you have essentially no knowledge of political and practical developments around the issue of national defence in Ireland over the past 9 years, in the aftermath of the Crimea annexation, the rise of China and Brexit.

The Tánaiste's combined Departments are hosting nationwide consultative fora on Ireland's international security policy next month, details are here, maybe think about going along. I certainly am.

We are already militarized. We an army, navy and air force. Not very informed. Incidentally Top Gun is for the Navy. No one other you is proposing Naval Fighters. Or defense against ICBMs. You've literally invented a load of stuff so you can argue against yourself.

"Policies" that aren't reviewed on the regular/Problems that are let linger on, end up causing a headache further down the line, and the longer it isn't reviewed/fixed, the worse it gets.

Recent developments in Ukraine have shown that Europe isn't as peachy as we all believed. And now it's not not entirely out of the question that our country may need to defend itself in the not so distant future. (By defend I mean for example not allowing Bombers from one country to fly through our airspace to attack our neighbor)

I think the issue is not that we don't have/cant afford expensive military equipment, It's the Kleptocracy and Nepotism that exist in every organization in Ireland, including the defense forces. I get some people feel that the defense forces are one of the most upstanding organisations on the Island, but recent documentaries have shown that that's just not true.

Tackling the "who you know" BS and Rip Off prices sub contracted agencies charge in Ireland, needs to be tackled first before any huge purchase of equipment like this could happen. Example: A hanger to house a plane that would normally cost Y would now cost Y x5. Cost of a runway would be way higher etc. All because sun contractors know there is money knocking about and they're gonna gouge the price as much as they can and deliver the absolute minimum (celtic tiger era crap apartments come to mind, there's not reason to believe supporting infra for fighter aircraft would be any different). Usually the person on the board of the sub contracting agency is "plays golf" with the local politician.

I believe this is the reason all sorts of infra projects are not moving in Ireland, not just military related ones.

And this has been an issue in Ireland for longer than the 70 years mentioned in the article. I've not idea how to tackle it.

First off, do you really think such issues only exist in Ireland? Hell we’re below average compared to some EU nations let alone regimes like Russia, second we are talking about defence related issues, backhanders and trade offs are par for the course for pretty much very nation in that regards (some are better at hiding it than others) but since we don’t even have a domestic defence industry we just end up screwed anyway both by that lack, and by the weaknesses of the DOD procurement team.

As for issues in the wider economy, that’s more to do with the fact that we are effectively at full economic employment in the economy and absolutely within the Construction sector meaning it doesn’t really matter how much money you throw at things, it can’t be spent.

Agree with you, one of the things “forgotten” during the Crash when everyone was cursing everything to do with construction was exactly what you mentioned, how many important contractors went under or were bought up leaving the market massively reduced and the total workforce for major capital projects crippled. But the time to change that is decades in the past now, and I can’t really think of how it can be changed.

Geographically safe as houses, but yet bombed in WWII. Ships were sank off our shores.

If it wasn't limitation then it certainly isn't now.

Recently infrastructure and commercial activity has been threatened, interfered with. That it only increasing.

So wrong again.