Andrews is assured blanket surveillance allegations are false

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, yesterday said he accepted that the British were not involved in indiscriminate or blanket tapping of Irish telecommunications and that sensitive IDA commercial information was not being targeted.

"I am also satisfied in relation to Irish companies," Mr Andrews said. He was commenting after a meeting here with the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, following concerns expressed by the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs Committee at allegations on British television of systematic surveillance.

Mr Andrews said that while Mr Cook had maintained the traditional British position of not acknowledging or denying intercepts, he had given an assurance that any surveillance that might have taken place was not in breach of British law, which prohibits blanket surveillance and requires individual authorisations from the Home Secretary. Mr Andrews accepted this assurance. "I imagine that any country with concern for its democracy will have to take account of any criminal, terrorist conversations, but to imagine every call out of Ireland is tapped is untrue, according to information from the British Foreign Secretary," Mr Andrews said. He said part of his conversation with Mr Cook had been confidential, and he refused to be drawn on suggestions that the Government seemed to be accepting routine political surveillance by a friendly neighbour.

He said he had specifically come to raise two concerns mentioned by the Oireachtas committee relating to indiscriminate and commercial surveillance, and had received assurances on both questions which he would relay back. "My remit was to go into two allegations," he insisted.

The issue had also been raised three or four times at a high official level by the London Ambassador, Mr Ted Barrington, with the relevant senior Foreign Office official, Mr David Manning.

A Foreign Office spokesman reiterated that they did not comment of security matters "but what Mr Andrews said in the light of their contact is clear".