Ireland prepares to host the EU Council Presidency in July, but it will need competent, prepared rapid-response teams to address any potential ransomware or service outages, according to Security and safety aviation consultant Kevin Byrne. He examines security threats and dangers on the horizon, and the preparedness strategies that should be deployed by the state agencies.
Ireland will host the rotating EU Council Presidency, commencing on 1 July 2026, and will be the location for a myriad of council meetings and legislative processes. Over six months, this country will host as many as 50 heads of state and government chiefs. Furthermore, as part of a programme exceeding 250 events, many more ministers, officials and delegates will be in attendance in disparate locations across the land.
Without doubt, the prominence and scale of the national task will increase the security profile of Ireland and may serve to magnify the obvious vulnerabilities, especially in the current climate of hybrid, cyber and geopolitical threats.
Let us examine the physical security threats that may arise. Under the heading of terrorism and ‘insider attacks’, we could include the violent extremists who perceive high profile EU events as worthy of attack. Indeed, any open venues, organised public protests, and general enhanced public visibility, expand potential avenues for kinetic attack.
In very recent times, a significant new risk has emerged in the shape of the unmanned aerial systems (drones), which may be designed for surveillance missions, general disruption or even, in the worst-case scenario, a kinetic threat to gatherings, airports or delegations.
We would be foolish to disregard the five drones which were seen under the flight path of President Zelenskiy’s Airbus as it flew into Dublin Airport late last year. It is a source of some regret, not that the naval vessel did not engage any of these objects with targeted heavy machine gun fire, but that the source of these five aircraft was neither identified nor pursued by any agency, national or foreign.
As an island nation, Ireland’s open maritime approaches may be exploited by the hybrid threats, especially those from shadow fleet vessels which, in other EU waters, have launched drones with impunity or conducted calculated sabotage by dragging anchors in shallow waters. It remains essential that we have as comprehensive a picture as possible of littoral traffic, identified or otherwise.
On the home front, that is on land, history shows that major summits can attract both peaceful protests and serious disruptive action. As regards sudden unrest, what spring to mind are the Dublin Riots of November 2023, covered live on American TV reports and elsewhere, and the violence that erupted at the asylum residences in Saggart, Co. Dublin, in late 2025. Social media plays a major part in the escalation of civil unrest in a democracy and cannot be underestimated.
DIGITAL DANGERS
As has been seen in recent times, hostile actors (perhaps state-sponsored) may conduct cyber espionage, the harvesting of personal documentation, malware, ransomware or related deniable operations against the Irish government and related EU networks. We would be naive to believe that our declared neutrality would, in any real way, provide protection from the attention of those who would seek to harm us.
High-impact targets for disruption or sabotage are readily identifiable and include, inter alia, transport systems, energy grids, telecommunications networks not to mention government websites or summit support IT systems. We well remember the effective attack on the Health Service Executive some years ago, allegedly a ransomware effort by criminals.
Furthermore, disinformation or “influence” operations may advocate misleading narratives in order to undermine public confidence in the Irish presidency, specific policy outcomes or even EU unity. The support staffs, the numerous service suppliers and the delegations themselves risk phishing or targeted interventions likely designed to compromise local or EU systems.
