Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 12 June 2025
237. Deputy Maeve O'Connell asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence for an update on the progress of his Department in creating the next White Paper Update, as set out in the White Paper on Defence, 2015. [31778/25]
View answerThe 2015 White Paper on Defence established a fixed cycle of defence reviews to ensure Defence policy remains current, agile and adaptive to the prevailing security environment. The first iteration of these reviews was the White Paper Update published in 2019.
The Defence Policy Review 2024 'Adjusting and affirming our Defence policy in an era of change' is the latest in this cycle of reviews and lays out Government Defence policy to 2028. The DPR was drafted in the context of the Governments agreed recommendations from the Commission on the Defence Forces and the Independent Review Group.
The first stage of the DPR was a revised Security Environment Assessment (SEA), conducted by an interdepartmental and interagency working group. The work of this group was led by the Department of Defence and also comprised representatives of the Departments of the Taoiseach; Justice; Foreign Affairs; Environment, Climate and Communications; The National Cyber Security Centre; Transport as well as the Defence Forces and An Garda Síochána. This Security Environment Assessment informed the overall policy requirements, associated tasks, capability development and resourcing as part of the Defence Policy Review.
This review, which lays out Government Policy to 2028, reaffirms, and where appropriate, revises our Defence Policy and the posture of the Defence Forces in response to the prevailing security environment and the wider national and international defence landscape.
As well as affirming our commitment to deepening and broadening defence and security cooperation the review highlights a number of key priorities for the period to 2028. These include:
• a focus on maritime security. My department will lead on the development of the National Maritime Security Strategy.
• an immediate focus on the development of an Integrated Monitoring and Surveillance System for Air, Land and Sea domains for Ireland
• implementation of changes to command and control and required governance and accountability, all of which are vital to the necessary transformation of the Defence Forces.
The Government is committed to increased levels of defence investment to enable the transformation of our Defence Forces and its capabilities across the five operational domains.
Our Defence policy will remain iterative and adaptive to the threat environment and will continue to be subject to a fixed cycle of defence reviews and updates in coherence with the development of a National Security Strategy and the EU's White Paper on Defence.
The next formal fixed cycle Defence review will be initiated in 2025 and it is intended its publication will dovetail with the Level of Ambition (LOA) 2 timeline of 2028.
