Taoiseach assures Europe Ireland is already increasing defence spending

Taoiseach Micheál Martin (left) meets the President of European Parliament (EP) Roberta Metsola (right) in Brussels. Photo: Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images

Ireland is already on a program of increased expenditure of defence and security amid increasing security threats from Russia, the Taoiseach has said.

Micheál Martin was in Brussels meeting with President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, where he discussed the issue of European Security and Defence, EU-UK relations and Ireland taking over the presidency of the European Council in July 2026.

It was his first bilateral with President Costa. "Scheduling difficulties" on Monday meant Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was not able to meet him yesterday, according to the Taoiseach.

Europe has seen a drastic upsurge in so-called hybrid war particularly since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Disinformation, sabotage, cyber-attacks, assassination attempts and the targeting of critical infrastructure are all on the increase.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner at the weekend, the Taoiseach said he believes defence will be a vital issue to tackle in his term in office.

Of specific concern to Ireland is the severing or damaging of transatlantic undersea communications cables which transport 95% of the world’s data. Several instances of cables being cut or damaged through "anchor-dragging" have occurred in recent months in the Baltic Sea connecting Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Germany and Sweden.

Russian spy ships have been escorted from the Irish Sea in recent months, and concerns are high about the vulnerabilities of undersea cables from Ireland to the UK carrying vast amounts of information from data centres in the tech firms operating in Ireland.

"These are real vulnerabilities now. Both private sector and public sector institutions in Ireland have been hit hard by cyberattacks since the Russian invasion of Ukraine’, said the Taoiseach.

The number of cyberattacks across Europe has grown exponentially. So this is a very real security issue for us and we have to be very conscious of that as a nation.

A collaboration between Nato Baltic states Finland, Denmark, Latvia, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia and Sweden launched a new military collaboration in response to the attacks on undersea critical infrastructure.

Mr Martin said sharing of expertise and collaboration was important for Ireland to learn from.

In his meeting with Mr Costa he said they both discussed the issue of cybersecurity and "marine subsea cables in particular, and the need again for collaboration and learning from others and pooling our expertise and knowledge, because these are very complex areas with a lot of technology involved and a lot of learning involved".

US tariffs

Meanwhile, the Taoiseach echoed the position of the European Commission in response to blanket aluminium and steel tariffs announced by US president Donald Trump on Sunday night, saying tariffs are "not conducive to economic growth".

"The trading environment between the US and EU is particularly significant, it’s the largest in the world," he said. "It’s important not to react in advance, the Commission wants to engage with the US on this."

"There is a lot of interdependence on raw material and components for final products we see on the market. Many products are manufactured in different countries as we learned during covid with nearly 50 countries involved in components, so it’s important to keep the relationship going.

But he said: "The EU has done a lot of scenario planning. This is not new. Even [former US] president [Joe] Biden introduced protectionist measures, and there seems to be a trend towards that."

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The European Commission described Mr Trump’s tariff announcement as "unlawful and economically counterproductive, especially given the deeply integrated production chains the EU and US established through transatlantic trade and investment".

"By imposing tariffs, the US would be taxing its own citizens, raising costs for business, and fuelling inflation. Moreover, tariffs heighten economic uncertainty and disrupt the efficiency and integration of global markets," a spokesperson for the European Commission said.

Mr Martin is travelling to Paris for the AI summit on Tuesday where US Vice President JD Vance is a keynote speaker.