How much should Ireland spend on defence?

One way to judge defence spending is to compare it with neighbours. By this yardstick, Ireland is an extraordinary outlier, spending €1.49 billion in 2026 or 0.3 per cent of GDP – the lowest in the EU, with a current average of 2.4 per cent.

When some of the distortions created by Ireland’s multinational sector are removed, the figure given by Minister for Defence Helen McEntee to the Dáil in January for 2024 was less than 0.4 per cent of GNI*. The conclusion is surely obvious: Ireland is a freeloader.

But the comparison tells us less than it first appears to. Spending as a GDP target is discussed so often because the heavy spenders are largely members of Nato, an alliance constructed around collective capabilities made possible because of mutual obligations. Its spending targets are intended to make sure that members contribute to that effort – hence they measure contribution. But they do not, by themselves, measure capability.

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For Ireland, a country outside of a military alliance, a GDP target is nearly meaningless. The point of a defence budget is not to spend the most, but to buy the capabilities you need. Thus one country can have enormous defence expenditure with few capabilities to show for it; while another can spend very little and find themselves adequately protected. The only way to know if a national budget is enough is by examining it against that country’s defence strategy.

And Ireland’s........

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