Helen McEntee refuses to confirm knowledge about alleged spy in Dáil

By Cate McCurry, PA

The Minister for Justice has refused to confirm whether she was alerted to an alleged spy in the Dáil within the last five years.

Helen McEntee said she is regularly briefed on all security matters, including by the intelligence services.

It comes after a report last Sunday stated that key government figures were told that Russian intelligence had recruited an Irish politician.

The Sunday Times reported that a “honeytrap” was used to recruit the politician dubbed Cobalt with one of the aims being to undermine relations between Britain, Ireland and the EU in the Brexit negotiations.

The paper also reported that while the Irish Defence Forces and security services identified the potential agent they remain in the country’s parliament.

The Tánaiste and Minister for Defence Micheál Martin said earlier this week that he was never told about an alleged spy.

Ms McEntee said she is briefed on security matters from gardaí and the Defence Forces.

“I think you’ll understand and appreciate I’m not going to get into details of what is a security matter. I shouldn’t.

“As Minister for Justice, I take my role extremely seriously,” she told RTÉ’s The Week In Politics Programme.

“What I will say, and obviously not getting into specifics, is that I am regularly briefed and updated on all security matters.

“I’m updated by the gardai, I’m updated by the intelligence service, and they themselves then obviously have the structures.

“As Minister for Justice, I am directly briefed on a number of different issues, whether it’s coming directly from the gardai the or through the Defence Forces.

“And I think what we’ve seen over the last number of weeks is that as a country, we are not immune to any type of attack, be it base physical or an intelligence type attack.

“That’s why I’ve consistently said in the last few weeks, we all need to be aware of that, and I think we are, as public representatives, alert to the fact that Ireland, albeit a small country, we are not immune to these type of risks.”

Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon said politicians should be given more information about the alleged spy.

Criticising the state’s “very cavalier” approach to internal security, the Dublin Central TD cited the ransomware attack on the HSE in 2021.

Conti, a Russia-based cybercrime group, was responsible for disrupting the country’s entire health system.

He said there were other “worrying incidents”, including claims that Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe made a phone call to an Israeli minister about the Occupied Territories Bill, an accusation the minister denied.

It was reported that the then finance minister had a “secret phone call” in 2019 with his Israeli counterpart to assure him the Irish Government would block the Bill.

“That TD said that there’s no basis in fact.

“Which actually means for me, that (there are) other questions which need to be asked here.

“Well, what happened? There was somebody impersonating the minister? Is this another attempt to undermine our democracy?” Mr Gannon added.

“The fact that no there was no basis in fact, suggested to me that there’s something else at play here, but yet, we have a very cavalier attitude to understanding, of being curious as to what exactly went on there.

“We have a very cavalier attitude to what’s happening within our own borders.”