Irish Examiner view: Gadgets in the wrong hands can pose a threat

Disruption caused at airports by drones is not a new threat — so why is new legislation required?

'No Drone Zone' signs on the perimiter fence at Dublin Airport. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Cool and slick gadgets can often deliver unacceptable and undesirable consequences. It’s one of the reasons that people used to smash machines. And it is difficult not to feel a twinge of sympathy for the likes of the Luddites and Swing Rioters when we see the perverse ways technology can be used in 2023.

At least those protestors had the excuse that they were trying to save their jobs and protect the value of their artisan skills against the inevitable, and impoverishing, advance of automation. But no such excuse exists in the malevolent use of equipment which is easily — perhaps too easily — available across the shop counter.

Dublin Airport was forced to temporarily suspend flights for half an hour on Thursday evening due to drone activity in the vicinity of the airfield. It was the sixth such interruption in recent weeks, sparking rage among passengers and the combustible Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary.

Disruption caused by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is not a new threat, emerging out of nowhere over the horizon. We have been commenting on it for several years and the Irish Aviation Authority was one of the first regulators in the world, in 2015, to require mandatory drone registration for all machines above 250gm in weight or fitted with cameras.

Operators are obliged to complete an online training course and to display their ID on their machine. Flying a machine within 5km of an airport is illegal.

It’s difficult to understand why this degree of foresight has not been accompanied by the provision of countermeasures at all commercial airports to take such intruders down, or indeed why new legislation is required. If this was a machine in the hands of terrorists or a criminal enterprise, is it seriously being suggested that we would be waiting for the paperwork to pass through the Dáil?

It’s an unconvincing argument that most people will find baffling.

Equally, there must be no sympathy for those who think it is acceptable to point lasers into cockpits to distract pilots and their crews, the latest egregious example of this being an attack on an S92 Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter on a training flight over the Ballineen and Bandon area in Co Cork.

The consequences of air crew being distracted by a pinpoint of green light bouncing around the cabin and disorientating or even temporarily blinding them are easy to imagine. It is a hugely irresponsible act which should carry a heavy statutory punishment.

Laser pointers are powerful, relatively cheap, and easily available to anyone. It’s difficult to conceive that the world would be a poorer place if they were no longer available for sale or that anyone would be greatly inconvenienced apart from teachers and professional presenters who like to use them to highlight the nub of their arguments.