Inside Ireland’s Drone Boom and Backlash
In July 2025, we were contacted to see if we would be interested in being part of Newstalk’s daily podcast with Ciara Doherty about where drones are in Ireland in 2025. As always, we were delighted whenever we had the opportunity to talk about drones and the industry, as we are always passionate about the topic. Much press attention has centred on Drone Deliveries. Still, there are many other ways in which drones are saving lives and taking people out of danger and have a vital role to play in monitoring Infrastructure and Surveying.
We often discuss drone regulations in our blog posts
We have many blog posts regarding drone registration, restricted airspace and even the “drone license“.
Have a look at our other blog posts and contact us if you have any queries.
Check out our recently added Drone Airspace Map to help fly safely and legally.
Speak to our drone experts today
A quick note from Fergal
Chats like this one with Ciara are always a useful reminder that the public conversation about drones has matured a lot since Drone Services Ireland started out. A decade ago the questions were mostly “are they legal?” and “are they safe?” – today the questions are far more specific: what the current IAA rules mean for a particular site, how drone registration and operator ID works in practice, and when a project needs a full mission planning and risk assessment rather than a quick Open category flight.
If you heard the interview and have a specific project in mind, the most useful starting point is usually the services overview – it groups our work by outcome (surveying and mapping, asset inspection, thermal imaging, photography and film) rather than by drone model, which is how most clients actually think about it. For public-sector and local authority projects we also keep a dedicated page for council and state-body work, and for anything that needs IAA-specific authorisations (STS, SORA, BVLOS) our drone consultancy service is where most of those conversations begin.
Coverage is nationwide from our base in Waterford – you can see recent project locations on the areas we service hub, including dedicated pages for Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Mayo.