IN JULY 1995 I agreed on a settlement of my action arising from the tapping of my telephone over eight years. That settlement provided for the disclosure of the settlement in the form of a statement agreed at the time. It also provided for confidentiality concerning the surviving transcripts of the intercepted phone conversations.
The disclosure was not made until now because, on seeing the 85 surviving transcripts, I believed the agreed statement was seriously misleading and agreement could not be obtained on an amended statement.
It was obvious, once I had seen the transcripts, that disclosure could take place only by revealing what was in them and, in any event, the agreement on confidentiality about them I believed to have been obtained from me on the basis of a false pretence. That false pretence was the implicit contention by the State in the course of the pleadings and the negotiations that the surviving transcripts would support its contention that the interception of my phone conversations was required only for reasons of national security.
THE disclosure of the settlement was to be made through the following statement:
"1. Proceedings initiated by Mr Vincent Browne in the High Court against Ireland and the Attorney General in relation to the interception of his telephone communications between February 1975 and February 1983 have been settled by agreement between the parties. The terms of the agreement are based on terms that were set out in November 1994, following settlement of discussions which were ongoing between the parties since June 1994.
"2. The State wishes to make it clear that, in issuing warrants for the interception of Mr Browne's telephone communications, it was not implying, in any way, that Mr Browne himself was engaged in subversive, criminal or other illegal activities. However, he had a special interest in reporting on the activities and policies of paramilitary organisations and, in that connection, he had meetings and interviews with members of those organisations in the course of the exercise of his profession as a journalist.
"3. The State wishes to6 make it known that the warrants on which the interceptions were based were issued in every case at the instigation of the Commissioner of the Garda Siochana who stated that they were required for security purposes and in the hope that the interceptions would secure useful information concerning subversive activities which could not be obtained in any other way.
"4. The State had acknowledged the existence of these warrants, on an exceptional basis, in view of the prior public disclosure of the fact that Mr Browne's telephone communications had been officially intercepted.
"5. The State, having considered the legal issues involved, in view of the prior public disclosure of the fact that these interceptions had been made and in view of the fact that proceedings could involve the presentation of evidence which would be prejudicial to the interests of the State, has judged it right to enter into a settlement of this case without any admission of liability."
"6. The settlement agreed between the parties provides for the payment of a sum of money to Mr Browne and for all the transcripts which remain in existence arising from the interception to be shown to Mr Browne and then to be destroyed in his presence. Both parties have also agreed to respect the confidentiality in relation to the content of those transcripts and all other aspects of the matter."
On seeing the 85 transcripts of the intercepted conversations I realised none of them was "required for security purposes and in the hope that the interceptions would secure useful information concerning subversive activities which could not be obtained in any other way". I also realised the claim that the "proceedings could involve the presentation of evidence which would be prejudicial to the interests the State" was a piece of rank hypocrisy.
Only four of the transcripts were of conversations with people who could be viewed as subversive, and not even these could be construed as relevant to securing useful information concerning subversive activity. Three were with Jim McCann, alias Jim Kennedy, who at the time of two of the conversations was in jail in Canada and the conversations concerned documents he had lodged with the Irish Embassy in Ottawa. The other call with Jim McCann had to do with arrangements to meet after he had been released from jail. The fourth was with the late Daithi O Conaill, a former leader of the IRA, but who at the time (1980) was no longer in the leadership.
All 81 of the other transcripts had nothing remotely to do with "useful information concerning subversive activities which could not be obtained in any other way". These conversations were with Magill staff, printers and distributors, journalists, public servants, lawyers, judges, defendants in the 1970 arms trial, family, friends and politicians.
Sixty of the 85 transcriptions related to a four-month period in 1980 during which I was writing about the 1970 arms crisis.
I SOUGHT to have the transcripts preserved so as to facilitate an investigation (if one was deemed appropriate) of the tapping of telephones and the making and retention of transcripts for reasons clearly unrelated to national security or crime.
I also wanted to preserve evidentiary material relevant to proceedings then being taken by the former Minister for Justice, Mr Patrick Cooney. The State insisted on shredding the transcripts in the teeth of my heated protests and claims that what it was doing was improper and, possibly, in contempt of court.
Incidentally, I find it entirely implausible that only 85 transcripts were made of conversations intercepted over an eight-year period and I am aware of information being circulated among politicians concerning another intercepted conversation, which was not among the transcripts.
In the last two weeks a former Fianna Fail Minister told me a transcript of a conversation I had with a friend of 16 years at the time (i.e. 1979) had been handed to him by another government minister (who was named by the former). That intercepted conversation was entirely personal and had no conceivable bearing on national security.
My disclosure of this information at this time has come about solely because of the following circumstances. I was invited on The Late Late Show for Friday week last to discuss a book written by Ms Mary Kenny. I was not interested in taking part in a discussion about this book but agreed to do so if allowed to "promote" the relaunch of Ala gill magazine. This was agreed. I also said I would answer questions about the tapping of my telephone because of recent news-paper articles that had been critical of me for doing a "secret" deal with the State.
But I would have made the disclosure anyway and in retrospect, should have made it earlier.