New drone technology that can control and take down drones will help to prevent flight disruption, according to the head of Dublin and Cork airports.

Dublin Airport has been closed six times this year as a result of drones entering the airspace, causing multiple flights to be diverted and thousands of passengers to be delayed.

Kenny Jacobs, chief of Dublin Airport Authority - which is responsible for operating the airport - acknowledged yesterday that problems with drones have been ongoing for several weeks.

"We welcome the decision taken by the State to give us authority to operate a drone effector piece of technology that allows you to take control of and bring down a drone," he saids.

Mr Jacobs stressed that this technology would help prevent closures of Dublin Airport as a result of drone activity.

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"I would expect much less disruption and then if you do have disruption, it will be much shorter in duration because we're able to detect the drone and take control of it," he said.

"Then either send it back where it came from or just control it and bring it down in a controlled fashion."

Mr Jacobs highlighted that the new system to prevent drones from impacting travel is not a fail-safe solution.

"The drone effector technology is proven technology that does work," he said.

"That's the best thing that we can do, it's not 100% proof so everybody needs to be aware of that, so we still need anybody spotting a drone to ring 999."

The new system is set to be operational in several weeks, faster than is typical for the drone-deterring tech.

"We have placed an order and I expect that we will be operational in a matter of weeks," he said.

"Other airports have taken about three to four months to do this, we will take three to four weeks to do this from the Government passing that statutory instrument."