The outgoing Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, will today convey the Government's and the Committee on Foreign Affairs' concerns to his British counterpart regarding reports of "widespread" Ministry of Defence interceptions of communications.
He will discuss these concerns with the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, at a meeting in Brussels. Despite a significantly higher level of security built into key Government departments' communications, officials have been warned about "the need to take all necessary precautions when transmitting classified information", following a meeting between the Garda, the Defence Forces and other "relevant" Departments, The Irish Times has learned.
The ministerial meeting and extra security notices come amid growing frustration with answers to allegations that the British Ministry of Defence has been tapping Irish telephone, fax and e-mail communications since the mid-1980s using a 47-metre specially-built tower located between two British Telecom relay masts in Cappenhurst, Cheshire.
Technical developments have made it possible that monitoring for security and commercial purposes could occur with the co-operation of telephone companies, including British Telecom, which last week purchased Irish company Esat. When asked about this last week, BT's spokesman would neither confirm nor deny that commercial or security tapping was happening and said the company did not comment on security matters.
A British television report last July alleged that the Ministry was electronically eavesdropping on two relay masts which "were used to retransmit telecommunications traffic originating in or destined for Ireland".
Although the TV report said the tower "ceased to be operational in 1997", its producers believed, "a fibre-optic system" was put in its place "to serve the same purpose". The British government has refused to say whether the phone-tapping continues.
Today's high-level meeting follows unsuccessful efforts by the Irish Ambassador to Britain, Mr Ted Barrington, to investigate the truth of the reports on the interceptions and their extent.
A senior official "with responsibility for security matters" at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told Mr Barrington at two meetings between July and October last year "that as a matter of policy the British government did not confirm or deny allegations of specific intelligence activities".
He also said that such "interceptions" were carried out in accordance with the Interception of Communications Act of 1985.
Under this act warrants are issued by relevant secretaries of state, or their appointees, for one of the following reasons: national security interests; prevention or detection of a serious crime; and to safeguard the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom. According to a report to the House of Commons, 2,031 interception warrants were issued in 1998 and 487 remained in force at the end of that year.
It is not know how many of these warrants relate to communications originating in or destined for this island, nor is the number of warrants issued on behalf of the Secretary for State for Northern Ireland made public, lest it would aid the operations of "agencies hostile to the state".
Although sources here say there may be some understanding for Ministry of Defence listening into conversations to avert potentially dangerous terrorist activity, the fact that legal eavesdropping was permitted for "the economic well-being of the United Kingdom", "is over the top", said the Fine Gael spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Mr Gay Mitchell, at a meeting of the Committee for Foreign Affairs.
Mr Mitchell believes there is prima-facie evidence to show the Ministry was phone-tapping for commercial reasons. He added that if the Committee on Foreign Affairs was not satisfied with the response given by Mr Cook, he would be asking the Taoiseach to raise the matter with the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair.