Ensuring a secure and resilient network of aids to navigation and collaborating with others as appropriate to monitor and secure our maritime domain are important and relevant considerations in this strategy.

The security of our maritime domain is a matter of increasing concern in terms of protection of assets, security, and surveillance. Ireland hosts significant subsea infrastructure that is of national and regional importance. The rollout of offshore renewable energy (ORE), and particularly floating ORE, will see critical energy installations at long distances from our shore.

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning technology can also be vulnerable. GNSS vulnerabilities can pose significant cybersecurity threats such as spoofing and jamming which can affect a significant number of on-board systems using positioning and timing inputs.

Complementary Positioning, Navigation, and Timing systems are required to address situations where GNSS is unavailable or degraded. This includes greater resilience within existing systems, and the use of dissimilar PNT systems, and existing AtoN and NavAid systems.

In 2023 Irish Lights hosted a joint workshop with the Marine Institute, on the topic of Navigating Safe and Secure Seas and Oceans. The feedback from this workshop informed the identification of associated research priorities in the National Marine R&D Strategy, Ocean Knowledge 2030. In this context, the commitment to the development of a Maritime Security Strategy in the Defence Policy Review 2024 is welcomed.

Ensuring a secure and resilient network of aids to navigation and collaborating with others as appropriate to monitor and secure our maritime domain are important and relevant considerations in this strategy.