Ireland won’t reveal number of phone taps

Outrage has greeted revelations that Ireland was the only one of 29 countries to refuse to allow Vodafone to reveal how many phone taps it had ordered.

The row erupted after the mobile phone giant issued a survey listing interceptions it had been asked to take part in by governments across the globe.

The Irish Government would only allow Vodafone to reveal the State requested metadata — general electronic footprint of individual users — in 4,124 instances in the year to the end of March.