TD seeks details of overheard phonecalls

The Government should request that Germany supply any information relating to Irish economic interests that may have been compromised as a result of US bugging of chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone.

The call was made by Independent Wicklow TD Stephen Donnelly, who said while it’s not known if the National Security Agency (NSA) was spying on Irish politicians, the country’s economic welfare may have been compromised if Ms Merkel discussed Ireland’s economic interests with others such as Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister.

Mr Donnelly said that discussions Ms Merkel may have had about the retrospective recapitalisation of Irish banks, the IMF deal, and our corporation tax would have been of significant interest to the US.

“Certainly from an American point of view, its administration would have had a huge interest in not just our 12.5% corporation tax rate but on any other conversations about the tax avoidance of multinational companies using Ireland.”

He said over the past two years, a huge amount of Irish debt has been bought in the US and knowledge that Ireland was going to repay senior bond holders could have been a huge economic advantage to some.

He said Irish authorities should ask that any information regarding Europe that the US may have obtained be shared amongst all member states.

During last week’s EU summit, Taoiseach Enda Kenny joked that he always worked on the assumption that his phone was under surveillance.

Yesterday, a number of well-placed Garda sources said they had no knowledge of any investigation into whether Mr Kenny’s phone was being monitored.

Mr Kenny himself confirmed as much. “I’ve seen some comment about my own phones being followed. I have no idea about the source of that comment. It has never been raised with me by the gardaí, and I have never raised it with the gardaí myself.”

He said if the allegations into the bugging of Ms Merkel’s phone were true, it would be “an appalling situation” and he said he wanted to see a resumption of the difficult EU/US trade talks resumed on an equal footing.

The latest whistleblower claims from Edward Snowden suggest the NSA monitored the phone calls of at least 35 world leaders. The revelations caused outrage in Germany where memories of the spying of the East German Stasi secret police are still very fresh.

The crisis has led to one of the worst diplomatic rows between Germany and the US in living memory.

Yesterday Der Spiegel magazine claimed Ms Merkel’s phone had been bugged since 2002. It claimed the US embassy in Berlin was from where communications were monitored and similar spying operations were being carried out in 80 locations worldwide, 19 of them in European cities.

Top intelligence chiefs from Germany are travelling to Washington this week to “push forward” a probe into the spying allegations.