A research programme to determine the risk of “sabotage, espionage, and disruption” to subsea cables infrastructure from hostile states is to be launched by the Government.
The two-year programme, due to begin early next year, comes in response to increased fears that Ireland’s maritime area will be subject to overt or covert sabotage from Russia.
The pilot programme, which will be based out of the National Maritime College of Ireland in Co Cork, will map Ireland’s undersea cables, offshore wind farms, energy pipelines and interconnectors to assess whether they are vulnerable to attack.
Known as Slándáil Mhuirí na hÉireann (Irish Maritime Security), the project will also wargame scenarios involving potential attacks on underwater infrastructure, including hybrid, cyber and conventional attacks.
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It will form part of the Government’s National Maritime Security Strategy which is currently being drafted by the Department of Defence.
Slándáil Mhuirí na hÉireann will be funded by the Department of Defence and the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment and cost €470,000.
Officials are increasingly concerned about Ireland’s vulnerability to an attack on its infrastructure from vessels linked to the Russian security services. There has been a rise in the number of Russian naval vessels, including underwater surveillance ships, visiting Irish waters in recent years.
There has also been a dramatic increase in the number of shadow fleet vessels – ships used by Russia to skirt sanctions and, according to some security services, engage in hybrid warfare against European Union states.
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In some cases, these ships have been observed by the Defence Forces loitering near subsea cables.
“The presence of significant communication and cloud infrastructure in Ireland, including subsea infrastructure in our Exclusive Economic Zone, exposes our country to an additional degree of risk from both State and non-state actors,” the Government’s latest national risk assessment states.
One key area to be examined by the project is enhancing “maritime domain awareness through surveillance and data integration”. This will involve integrating the new sonar system being acquired by the Naval Service with other underwater sensor systems and satellite data.
Another project task involves “risk modelling for sabotage, espionage and disruption scenarios” and developing “response protocols in co-ordination with naval and civil authorities”, according to a job posting for a senior researcher on the project.
It also will devise scenarios where offshore wind farms and cable landing areas come under hybrid attack and will make recommendations “for physical security, redundancy and incident response planning”.
The project is expected to hold conferences and publish policy documents, as well as “foster national and international dialogue on maritime security”.
It will publish a number of research papers and, after two years, deliver a comprehensive expert report.
“This pilot research programme aligns with the work of the Department of Defence in relation to the development of National Maritime Security Strategy,” a spokesman for the Department of Defence said.
