Northern Ireland had a significant Protestant majority when it was established in 1921 as part of the partition of Ireland. Its founders believed this Protestant majority would secure the future of the newly-created political entity.

“We’ve also had meetings with that department and Gas Networks Ireland and Eirgrid, looking at infrastructure offshore, and we are currently agreeing with the Department of Energy how we might respond to that in terms of increasing the number of patrols in those areas, both from the Naval Service and the Air Corps.“The owners of that infrastructure also have responsibility, for example, Eirgrid have a private sector company and global company monitoring cables under the sea.

Advertisement“I think it’s important also to say that most of that infrastructure, particularly the pipelines, are actually encased in concrete and are under the seabed.“So they’re already a pretty secure piece of infrastructure. We are, as you would expect, reviewing that at the moment, and I think you will see increased Naval Service and Air Corps presence in the the parts of the sea where infrastructure is under.“There is an equipment issue here as well that obviously we need to review and look at whether we need to factor into the capital investment programme that we have as well.”

Mr Coveney was quizzed by committee members on whether there is provision to scale up resources for the Defence Forces at short notice in response to the war in Ukraine.AdvertisementIndependent TD Cathal Berry told the committee: “A big concern of mine, obviously, is the situation in Ukraine. I think it’s shared by all the members of the committee here, how Ireland doesn’t really have a big say in how that situation is going to develop.

“And the trajectory that the trendline we are on is very non-reassuring at the moment.

“Is there a provision for additional funding available for defence if we need to scale up our Defence Forces at very short notice?”— The Sun (@TheSun) October 17, 2022

Tuesday's front page: Humiliated https://t.co/74Vo131pN7#TomorrowsPaperToday pic.twitter.com/IU2cmicR4F— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) October 17, 2022

The Daily Mail says the prime minister is “in office, but not in power” and Metro dubs the new chancellor the “axeman”.MAIL: In Office, But Not In Power #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/UpVK26jtNV