According to the Financial Times,  Irish companies like Ubotica Technologies, Provizio, VRAI and Cathx Ocean are pivoting towards defence after years focused on commercial tech.

Ubotica Technologies chief executive Fintan Buckley said: “Demand has always been difficult to crystallise but the market is there much more now.”

His outfit is talking to governments across Europe about real-time tracking of dark vessels with AI-enhanced satellites.

Ireland may be a NATO outsider and militarily neutral, but its government, sitting on a huge budget surplus, has faced heavy flak for freeloading on security. Ireland’s maritime area is seven times the size of its landmass, laced with vital transatlantic data cables, yet its overstretched navy can barely deploy two patrol ships at a time.

Fianna Fáil innovation spokesperson Malcolm Byrne said, “We’re never going to see Ireland investing in tanks and weapons. But certainly it makes a lot of sense for Ireland to develop our capabilities in areas around cyber security.”

Provizio chief executive Barry Lunn, who had previously rebuffed military interest, admitted, “We’ve started answering the door a bit more” to “non-weaponry-based” defence applications.

Lunn said: “Deep-tech needs money and what we do needs money — well then, you have to follow the money.”

Dublin outfit VRAI, which trains offshore workers using AI, says demand from aerospace and defence has surged. Chief executive Pat O’Connor said, “We’re not a defence company, we just happen to have a lot of demand coming at us from the aerospace, defence, security sector as well.”

Cathx Ocean, an underwater imaging firm already working with oil majors like BP, said a third of its business now lies in defence and critical infrastructure protection. Chief executive Adrian Boyle noted the underwater vehicle market was already expected to grow 20 per cent even before Europe's recent military rethink.

Cork’s Green Rebel, which deploys robotic submarines across European waters, argues that bolstering Irish tech is a way for Dublin to show it is pulling its weight.

Jared Peters, director of science and new markets, said: “It’s a great way to bridge the gap between being a neutral country but not being defenceless.”