US President Donald Trump is coming to Ireland soon and the country has had to bring in some outside help to meet the security needs.
From road blocks to air space restrictions, there will be a lot of safety measures put in place in Ireland when US President Trump is en route and on our shores.
As there have been many threats made against President Trump, the Secret Service will be making sure everything is done to help protect him, with some of that responsibility falling on Ireland as well.
Ireland, of course, is a neutral country, and while we do have an army, we're not as equipped for large-scale threats, and have had to reach out to external sources to help.
In defense and international security, defense actors refer to any individuals, groups, organisations, or states that play a role in shaping, executing, or influencing defense policy and military operations, and Ireland has called upon a number of external actors for this visit.
Explaining on The Pat Kenny Show, retired Lieutenant Colonel Airport Safety & Security Auditor Kevin Byrne explained: "We need a fair bit [of external actors]. The complaint I made many times and many, many years ago was the fact that we don't have, for example, a full time minister for defence.
"That's not to reflect on the current minister or anybody before that, but you can't take security seriously if you don't have a full time minister for defence like that. That's just one thing like that.
"Nor do we have a Secret Service, and people say, stop banging on about that, but you have a filtered system from the Garda Síochána and the military service, and they're both very good like that.
"We don't have what every other country west of Albania has, and that's the civil run civil service to filter the stuff out and give it to the appropriate ministers and say, 'This is our assessment of what goes on. These are the threats.' We don't have that.
"We've got the Garda Síochána, whose job is to prosecute people in many cases and we've got the army, which is supposed to carry guns and guard us against external and internal threats. We don't have a filtered system. And really, we should have."
So what kind of outside help could we expect to see or hear about, or know nothing about given the secret nature of security measures?
Mr Byrne elaborated: "There are always two aircraft north and south of England and what they call a quick reaction alert like that. There's always a submarine somewhere around, and this naval vessel, the Royal Navy's frigate, will be out there somewhere as well.
"Probably, we're going to have some German assistance as well. I saw online, people in uniforms in a military barracks who weren't wearing Irish army uniforms, so I figured they're either Germans or French.
"They had an equipment piece which wasn't our own inherent equipment, so we're taking help wherever we can get it.
"But I'd like if we could sometime in the future, say we have enough people, enough capacity to do what we have to do and protect ourselves in all eventualities."
Patrick Bury, former NATO Analyst and Bath University, also joined the call and Mr Kenny posed the question as to how much do we need to spend and what do we need to do in order to be able to defend ourselves adequately?
Patrick replied: "Ultimately, it's a political choice about what you want to do, where you assess the threats, where you see Ireland's place in the world, whether you're in favour of neutrality or not. Like personally, obviously, I am, but I think with neutrality, you choose that, comes rights and responsibilities.
"And one of them is, as basically every security analyst says, you must be able to protect your territorial integrity and not become a vector for other threats.
"So I think Ireland has made some good progress in terms of where it was as a low baseline with the independent commission. But if you remember back when that concluded, the government chose to go for a level of ambition two.
"It looks like some sort of uplift to that is probably needed, given the way the security situation is deteriorating even further. Level of ambition three had jets, a jet squadron and another few different capabilities added in terms of naval, etc. Whether you need to go that far, I don't know.
"But the defence spend is really small as a percentage of GDP, even as a percentage of GNI, if you cut that back, it's one of the lowest in Europe.
"And [even] though we're coming, as I said, from a low base, I think they've added an extra billion and a half, it seems like it's not even delivering fully on level of ambition two."
President Trump is scheduled to arrive in Ireland on Saturday, September 12, to see the Irish Open being held at his hotel in Doonbeg, Co Clare.
Main image: US president Donald Trump on the 4th tee at Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, Co Clare, in 2023, Picture by: PA Wire
