Mr. Mark Kelly:

As the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is currently suing GCHQ in the British courts and the National Security Agency in the New York federal court, we probably are not in a position to give members a model of best practice. However, the serious point I wish to make is this is happening anyway. In reality, in respect of crime and security, we have Special Branch activities within An Garda Síochána and Mr. John Devitt mentioned G2 within the Defence Forces. Our understanding is that they work hand in glove and between them effectively constitute Ireland's spying service. The point is that it is not subject to any effective oversight, and one point that is very clear in better models of practice is that one has effective oversight. One has tribunals and the possibility of challenging the activities or at least knowing who is doing which parts of the job. That is not currently the situation here.