IRFU responds to spy claims - ‘Artistic licence’

According to the IRFU, the author of a book by a former British military intelligence officer, who claims he was employed to search for bugs inside the union’s headquarters, exercised ‘extreme degrees of artistic licence’ in his portrayal of a risk assessment carried out by a security consultancy.

The book, Client Confidential, which the author wrote under the pseudonym Sean Hartnett, is classed as a biography but some of its claims appear outlandish.

‘Hartnett’ also says he was paid to carry out covert and counter surveillance for Irish blue-chip companies, semi-state bodies and banks just as the Celtic Tiger was about to implode.

In his 2016 book, Charlie One, he claimed to have been part of a counter-terrorism unit in Northern Ireland. It became a best-seller when Britain’s Ministry of Defence objected to it going on sale and threatened legal action.

The IRFU response is cleverer than that. It acknowledges it retained – and still does – a consultancy firm while saying he fictionalised many elements in the account of its engagement with it. In other words, more spy fiction than spy fact.