Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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1983. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will outline the number of incidents involving unauthorised drone activity near Dublin Airport that have been reported to An Garda Síochána since the deployment of counter-drone technology by the DAA; the number of these incidents that have resulted in investigations, prosecutions or other enforcement actions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41623/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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The Garda Commissioner is responsible for the administration and management of An Garda Síochána, including all operational policing matters like the recording of incidents and the management of Garda IT systems. As Minister, I have no role in these independent functions and am unable to direct the Commissioner in any operational decisions.

However, to be of assistance I sought the information requested by the Deputy from An Garda Síochána and have been advised that the data requested does not exist in a reportable format. There is no structured incident type or offence code available in the PULSE system for this specific type of activity.

The Garda Síochána Analysis Service have advised that a keyword search of ‘drone’ and ‘airport’ of charge and summons records has returned fewer than ten results.

Furthermore, the regulation and licensing of drones falls under the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) which comes under the remit of my colleague the Minister for Transport. I am informed that following drone incidents which caused disruption at Dublin Airport in early 2023, Dublin Airport Authority (daa) put in place a range of additional measures to counter illegal drone use, including the deployment of counter drone technology and an updating of standard operating procedures when drones are detected. I am further informed that all relevant bodies at Dublin Airport now cooperate effectively to tackle illegal drone use and the disruption encountered in early 2023 has not been repeated.