Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, recently signed into law Part 3 of the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Act 2008. This refers to targeted surveillance, meaning the person or persons whose information is intercepted would be the subject of a particular criminal investigation, that the request shall be detailed and make a reasonable case for the necessity of the interception of information. The reality is very different. As was exposed by Mr. Edward Snowden recently, billions of Irish communications are being actively recorded and stored by the British GCHQ and shared with other intelligence agencies. They have tapped into a cable under the Irish Sea and it appears that Vodafone has been paid tens of millions of euro for facilitating the activity. This is nothing short of mass surveillance and the indiscriminate targeting of all citizens of this country, regardless of whether people are innocent or guilty. It seems people are now guilty until proven innocent.

It seems that in a world where everything is collected and monitored, anyone who challenges unjust laws will be silenced. This undermines democracy. There is no system of judicial oversight instituted by this legislation signed into law by the Minister. The Minister has given extraordinary powers that are not subject to scrutiny and there is a proposal to set up secret courts to deal with third party companies that do not comply with the Minister's orders, which is completely at odds with any notion of transparency and judicial oversight practices that would be regarded as essential for any country adhering to the UN convention on human rights.

Why does the Government feel it necessary to violate all notions of transparency with regard to this legislation? Will the Taoiseach indicate if the Government authorised the British monitoring of the undersea cables? If so, under what legislation was this done?

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