Excessive MI5 bureaucracy and its "slow, ponderous and analytical" operation against the IRA contributed to the failure to arrest the Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf bombers several months before the bombs went off in London, according to a book published today based on disclosures by the former MI5 officer, Mr David Shayler.
The revelation is part of a series of claims of incompetence and failure within the intelligence agency made by Mr Shayler, who is in exile in Paris under threat of prosecution if he returns to Britain and exposes inconsistencies in enforcing the Official Secrets Act.
Defending the Realm, MI5 and the David Shayler Affair, written by Mr Mark Hollingsworth and Mr Nick Fielding, is published with the full authority of British government lawyers, MI5 and MI6 officers following their co-operation with the D-notice Committee, which advises publishers and journalists on matters of national security.
A chapter of the book devoted to Northern Ireland claims that MI5 operations against the IRA in Britain were characterised by incompetence due to its inability to act swiftly on information provided by GCHQ or IRA informers in the North. After MI5 was given overall responsibility for anti-IRA operations in Britain towards the end of 1992, the agency failed to act on prior intelligence gathered against the IRA in the six months leading to the Bishopsgate bombing in April 1993, according to Mr Hollingsworth.
The book also includes a reference to methods of intelligence-gathering in Northern Ireland revealed by the author, Mr Tony Geraghty, in his book The Irish War. SAS and MI5 officers confirmed to the author that IRA members were targeted when intelligence officers visited them at their homes to inform them they had won a holiday competition. Listening devices would then be installed in their homes when the family left for the holiday.