LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago

Niall O'Connor

GARDAÍ HAVE CONFIRMED that they have dealt with a number of drone incursions during Ireland’s EU presidency which began in July. 

Deputy Commissioner Paul Cleary, speaking at a press conference in Dublin today ahead of the visit of US President Donald Trump, confirmed that gardaí tracked and dealt with drones during recent large-scale events. 

The garda operation to secure Trump’s visit to Dublin and County Clare is known as Operation Far Sunrise. 

“In recent events, we have been able to identify, track and mitigate drones where there was an incursion,” Cleary said. 

The garda equipment allows Armed Support Unit members to track the devices in the air and mitigations include downing the unmanned aircraft or returning it to the operator.

Cleary did not expand on what events it happened at and whether anyone was dealt with directly or arrested by gardaí.

When asked about the investigation into the unverified sighting by pilots on board an Aer Lingus Regional aircraft off Wicklow on Tuesday evening, Kelly said that the investigation was ongoing.

Kelly said that gardaí were working closely with the Irish Defence Forces in their investigation into the incident.

“The vast majority of drone sightings actually turn out not to be drones, and there’s a whole variety of reasons why people will report what they think are drones. And this isn’t unusual to Ireland.

“We’ve seen this previously, particularly around the Danish EU presidency. There were many hundreds of drone sightings, and none of them turned out to be nefarious, and that’s our experience as well to date,” he said. 

Deputy Commissioner Paul Cleary with Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly and Deputy Garda Commissioner Shawna Coxon talking to the media about An Garda Síochána’s Policing and Security Operation during the Trump visit in Walter Scott House.

More broadly, he added that there have been a large number of drone sightings and he said that the vast majority of the sightings have been proven to be innocent incidents or other aircraft.

Kelly said that they have met with Danish law enforcement specifically around dealing with drones and he said he is happy with the equipment and skills developed by An Garda Síochána to deal with the problem. 

“These type of sightings are absolutely expected. But the key thing for us, around these particular critical sites where these very, very important guests of the state are, we have the systems in place to mitigate drones, particularly nefarious ones – I’m very satisfied about that.

“I think the public certainly should get reassurance around the investment that we have, the support from the government, the interoperability that we have with the Defence Forces, so we’re working really closely with them,” he added. 

In the broader threat landscape during the Donald Trump visit, Kelly would not identify specific concerns for gardaí but he said they were working with international police forces and the US Secret Service to counter any potential treats.

“In a complex operation such as this and a visit such as this, obviously threats are multifaceted. We’ve done an extensive threat and risk assessment for the whole visit of the President of the United States, and I’m happy that we have in place everything that we need to mitigate all the various threats,” he said. 

Meanwhile, Helen McEntee, the Minister for Defence and Foreign Affairs, said that she expected the gardaí to release their investigation findings soon. the Minister said that a structure has been put in place with gardaí to deal with drone incursions and to determine the credibility of sightings. 

Speaking in Wexford this afternoon at the Fine Gael think-in this morning McEntee said: “I think it’s really important that anything that’s reported to them, that they carry out a full investigation.

“I would expect that there’ll be either a report or a clarification on this in the near future.”

With reporting from Christina Finn in Gorey.