Royal Navy warship to air-defend EU meeting off Irish coast

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Royal Navy warship to air-defend EU meeting off Irish coast?

Of the 8 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 25% are rated left, 37% are rated centre, 38% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 11. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.

Is Royal Navy warship to air-defend EU meeting off Irish coast left or right?

Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 8 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.

Is the coverage of Royal Navy warship to air-defend EU meeting off Irish coast biased?

Royal Navy warship to air-defend EU meeting off Irish coast is one event reported by 11 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.

Which outlets covered Royal Navy warship to air-defend EU meeting off Irish coast?

11 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.

Why must the Royal Navy warship stay outside Irish territorial waters?

The warship must remain outside Irish territorial waters due to constitutional restrictions. Legal advice received by the Irish Government indicates that foreign military forces conducting active operations inside Irish territory would likely raise constitutional problems.

What is the constitutional basis for this restriction?

Irish constitutional law, specifically Article 15, states that only the Oireachtas, Ireland's parliament, has the right to raise a military force on Irish territory. This prevents foreign military forces from operating within Irish territory.

Has a foreign warship provided air defence for Ireland before?

Yes, a French frigate previously provided air defence outside the 22-kilometre limit in Dublin Bay during a visit by European heads of government. This occurred earlier in the year during Ireland's EU presidency.