Oversight judge calls for modern powers to combat changing threats to Ireland's security

George Birmingham, the independent examiner for security legislation, pointed out that current 30-year-old laws on phone interceptions is ‘seriously out of date’, as there is no legal provision to access digital communications such as messaging apps. File picture: Moya Nolan

The changing terrorism landscape, the need to modernise phone-tapping laws, and the impact of legal restrictions on accessing communication data all feature in the first report of Ireland’s new oversight judge on security.

The independent examiner of security legislation, George Birmingham, has just published his first report since the office was officially established a year ago.

As he mentions in his 80-page report, his office was first recommended by the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland report, published in September 2018, as part of a proposed overhaul of national security architecture.

The Office of the Independent Examiner (OIE) was provided for in mammoth Policing, Security, and Community Safety Act 2024, enacted in April 2025.

The annual report covers the period April 5, 2005, to December 31, 2025.

In his foreword, Mr Birmingham said the threat the country faces has evolved in recent years: “While, for much of the State’s history, security concerns, and certainly security legislation focused primarily, indeed almost exclusively, on the threat to the State posed by the IRA in its various manifestations. Now, the threats are multipronged.”

Mr Birmingham, who retired in 2024 from the High Court, said dissident republicans “remain a real concern” even over 27 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

“But the threats we face are far broader now,” he said.

“Today, Islamist terrorism is a significant cause of concern, either because of the possibility of attacks within this jurisdiction — and there have been a number of such attacks within the past number of years — and also the possibility of an attack on a neighbouring jurisdiction being planned or launched from this State.”

He said the potential threat is wider.

“There is also the question of extreme right-wing terrorism, as well as single-issue terrorism and extreme left-wing terrorism,” he said.

“There is also unease about the activities of hostile state actors. The possibility of actions undertaken by so called ‘lone wolves’, whether motivated by terrorist ideology or not, also requires consideration.”

Mr Birmingham said he received “unstinting co-operation” from all the agencies he oversees, which includes gardaí, the Defence Forces, Revenue Commissioners, Fiosrú (police ombudsman), the Competition and Consumer Protection
Commission, and parts of the Department of Justice and Department of Taoiseach.

The OIE has a demanding set of functions:

• Review the operation and effectiveness of security legislation — covering seven separate laws;
• Examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of security services;
• Adjudicate on disputes such as accessing information or conducting searches, between the garda commissioner, the Policing and Community Safety Authority, and Fiosrú.

Mr Birmingham said his main focus is on the security legislation, and that the first annual report was concentrating on three main ones: Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993, Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009, and the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011.

His report said the 1993 act, on phone interception, is “seriously out of date” and pre-dates modern digital communications.

As the law is over 30 years old, there is no legal provision to access modern digital communications — including the likes of WhatsApp, Telegram, and Snapchat — or access webpages or internet browsing history through interception.

He recommended legislation to cover encrypted communications and noted that the justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan, is bringing forward legislation to do so.

His report points out that use of “electronic scanning equipment” designed to locate and record identifier data from mobile devices is permitted in many other jurisdictions.

“A common example of such equipment is the IMSI [international mobile subscriber identity] catcher,” the report said.

“IMSI catchers are telephone eavesdropping devices used for intercepting mobile phone traffic and tracking location data.”

The report said legislation “should be developed” to provide for the use of these and other electronic scanning equipment.

In what will disappoint some observers, Mr Birmingham said that “having given the matter some thought” he had decided it “would not be appropriate” to provide statistics on the use of the interception powers.

He said the figures might be “distorted” as multiple authorisations can relate to the same phone or the same person. He said the level of interception is “modest” and, having examined all the cases in the gardaí and the Defence Forces, he is very satisfied with their thoroughness and the “restrained” use of the powers.

Mr Birmingham did recommend that the current law where the justice minister authorises phone interception be replaced by judicial authorisation.

On the 2009 surveillance act, the report said:

•  An Garda Síochána made nine applications to use surveillance devices to the courts between April and December 2025, compared to 11 in the same period the previous year;
•  Gardaí internally authoritised tracking devices 47 times in the relevant period in 2025, compared to 41 the previous year;
•  The Defence Forces applied for surveillance authorisations from the courts six times in the reporting period, compared to zero applications the previous year;
•   Revenue made three surveillance applications to the courts last year, compared to one the previous year, and internally granted 21 tracking deployments, compared to 22 the previous year.

The report also details the complicated legal situation on communication data.

While a 2022 European court ruling declared the blanket retention of communication data for criminal investigations as “unlawful”, it did leave the door open in terms of security of the State.

The Government introduced the Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Act 2022 to make the necessary changes to the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011.

The annual report said gardaí made 403 requests for internet source data and 32 request for cell site location data in urgent cases in 2025, compared to 659 requests and 58 requests respectively in 2024.

A different section of the act, which allows gardaí to request access — including for criminal investigations — for “user data”, was used 1,292 times last year, compared to 944 the year before.

The Defence Forces made 83 requests for user data in 2025, compared to 30 the year before.

• Cormac O'Keefe is Security Correspondent.