Security watchdog wants to ensure surveillance activities by agencies are 'appropriate and proportionate'

Mr Justice George Birmingham, independent examiner for security, said he received 'absolutely no pushback' from the agencies, and that they saw 'merit' in it. Pictures: Moya Nolan

Ireland’s security watchdog has told security, police, and oversight agencies they need to have systems in place to ensure that any surveillance of lawyers, journalists, or politicians is “appropriate and proportionate”.

George Birmingham said he took the step following the publication of an inquiry in the North into the controversy surrounding surveillance of journalists and lawyers by the PSNI.

The McCullough Review, published last September, found that while surveillance was not “widespread or systemic”, there were more than 20 attempts by the PSNI to identify journalists’ sources.

The review also raised “significant concerns” about the PSNI conducting trawls of its systems "to identify unauthorised contact between PSNI personnel and journalists".

In an interview with the Irish Examiner, Mr Birmingham, the independent examiner of security legislation, said he wanted to ensure the agencies with “intrusive powers” of surveillance had the systems in place in "sensitive" investigations.

He said: “Having read the [McCullough] report, which found that there was no evidence of systemic and widespread surveillance, but which did report instances of concerning activity by the police, I made a decision to raise the topic with each of the bodies exercising intrusive powers.” 

Mr Justice George Birmingham.

The former High Court judge, whose office was set up a year ago, said he specifically asked each body to consider whether their application process reflected the recognition of the “added sensitivity” involved in cases where categories of privilege may exist.

“These include cases where the action proposed would likely have implications for legal professional privilege, journalistic privilege, or other areas of particular sensitivity, such as membership of the Oireachtas," he said. 

"In such cases, likely to be rare, there should be specific consideration given at an appropriately high level to the question of whether the action contemplated is nonetheless appropriate and proportionate.” 

He recommended that the bodies specifically include and record their assessments in their internal procedural documents.

Mr Birmingham said he received “absolutely no pushback” from the agencies, and that they saw "merit" in it.

In the interview, Mr Birmingham also discussed his plans to start a scoping review into Ireland’s espionage laws shortly, given the primary legislation is over 60 years old.

It was introduced long before developments in physical spying technologies, the internet, digital spying technologies, cyber espionage, and foreign influence operations.