Ireland - now considered one of most vulnerable countries in the EU (defense wise)

The reason the Irish military is sized as it is and the primary purpose of the Irish military is to protect the government from enemies within the state, aka paramilitary organisations such as the IRA or INLA. Drug gangs in Ireland have not gotten to Mexican Sinaloa cartel levels of organisation, Garda armed response units are able to keep them in check. It would be a different story if we land a land border with the main European continent with no geographical barriers to impede an invader, we are not, we are an island sitting on the edge of Western Europe.

Irelands primary security problem is ensuring the supply of food & energy to enable our populations life support systems, being at the end of the supply line we can be cut off first. Most people don't realise what a war economy is, restrictions on Irelands civilian consumption during the world war II emergency have been forgotten. Most people in Ireland have no concept of rationing and how difficult it becomes for Ireland to secure materials from abroad when continental countries activity is focused on war. The big takeaway from previous world wars is the sheer amount of materials and men needed to fight modern industrial scale war.

I just mentioned the wind thing as a way to show money is being spent on stuff on a scale far greater than what's being discussed here for some defence. Plus we'd have to try protect that infrastructure too once built. It's in no way a dig t Ryan or green policies. I was just highlighting we plan to spend untold billions for one thing, but folks are saying spending more than we do on defence is a waste.

Taiwan is an island and is being eyed up by a bigger neighbour. Being an island isn't a reason for someone not to cause trouble. Didn't Russia and indeed the US have plans on how to bomb the place to bits if either decided to setup shop here in the not too distant past?

I think any issues we have here will be digital where the things we depend on day in and day out will be hacked/destroyed leaving us in a bit of a bind. Few disruptions to port infrastructure and we're doubly screwed. It wouldn't take much to knock us out unfortunately.

We would be! Denmark have a defence force that can be sent to protect their turbines. If Ireland builds these, we'll become more dependent on them for power. They'd need protecting some way. Look at Ukraine and they started protecting their energy infrastructure after it was targeted in Winter '22. I think we should be able to at least know if something was fluting around hat stuff. https://news.yahoo.com/media-russia-possibly-preparing-sabotage-072335139.html

We just need to be aware

No one is going to be conscripted.

it isn’t even about more people in the military, it is giving those people the tools to do their job properly and making our defence forces an attractive place to work.

we have a fleet of trainers that are designed to train pilots in high speed aircraft, before moving on to jets. Except we don’t have any, so we just have a very expensive display team that train pilots on behalf of Ryanair and Aer Lingus. It isn’t about having pilots, it’s about giving them something to fly.

as has already been pointed out, we don’t have any heavy lift aircraft, so we are dependent on the French or British pulling our citizens out of trouble spots. We have a very highly trained ranger wing, who can fly anywhere in the world and carry out rescue missions to help Irish citizens, providing someone else can give them a lift.

we have gaping capability gaps in our defence forces and these gaps are what leave us exposed, not the lack of personnel.

people are talking about seaborne invasions being unlikely, but the reality is, half a dozen Ilyushin aircraft could land at Dublin airport and take control pretty much unhindered.

They fly through Irish airspace now, without being shot down. If they suddenly did a left turn at Mayo and headed for Dublin, or even landed at Shannon, what’s to stop them?

We could buy 50 of these guys and have them circuit the coast constantly. They can operate autonomously or manned and can fire rockets or run surveillance. Add in some decent radar and you'd have a decent little defence system. Maybe a Bayraktar or similar for longer range surveillance