Helen McEntee has refused to confirm whether she was briefed on the presence of an alleged Russian asset in the Oireachtas in the past 5 years during her tenure as Justice Minister.
In recent weeks a report in The Sunday Times claimed that key figures within the Irish government had been informed that Russian intelligence had managed to recruit an Irish member of the Oireachtas, codenamed “Cobalt”, using a “honeytrap”. It was claimed that while the Gardaí and Irish Defence Forces are aware that this individual is potentially a Russian spy, the individual has remained a politician.
Last week Tánaiste and Defence Minister Micheál Martin, who has served as Taoiseach within the lifetime of the current Government, said that he was never briefed about any alleged spy.
However, on RTÉ’s The Week In Politics on Sunday, when asked if she was aware of this situation, Justice Minister Helen McEntee refused to confirm or deny whether she had been informed.
“I think you’ll understand and appreciate I’m not going to get into details of what is a security matter – I shouldn’t,” she said, adding: “As Minister for Justice, I take my role extremely seriously.”
She said that while she had been informed generally about “all” security matters, she refused to elaborate on her knowledge of this specific alleged case.
“What I will say, and obviously not getting into specifics, is that I am regularly briefed and updated on all security matters,” she said.
“I’m updated by the gardai, I’m updated by the intelligence service, and they themselves then obviously have the structures.
“As Minister for Justice, I am directly briefed on a number of different issues, whether it’s coming directly from the gardai the or through the Defence Forces.
“And I think what we’ve seen over the last number of weeks is that as a country, we are not immune to any type of attack, be it base physical or an intelligence type attack.
“That’s why I’ve consistently said in the last few weeks, we all need to be aware of that, and I think we are, as public representatives, alert to the fact that Ireland, albeit a small country, we are not immune to these type of risks.”