What is the Irish Secret Service?

national | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday December 02, 2003 11:59 by Jonah

The Irish Secret Service. What is it? I didn't know either, so I did somoe investigation. I still don't know, but I am even more curious.

Those of us nursing greivances about the Government's lack of money for luxuries like child benefit, rent allowance and so on can take inspiration from the mysterious boys and girls in the Irish Secret Service who took an 8% cut in funding this year.

Little known, and nowhere near as well known as our friends in the Special Branch, the Secret Service received a budget of 767,000 Euros for 2004, down from 831,000 Euros last year.

But what is the Secret Service? Where is it? What does it do? Who's in it? All good questions, and all questions put to various Ministers by Sinn Féin TD Aengus O Snodaigh, understandably curious about where this money was going.

Turns out, there is NO Irish Secret Service in this jurisdiction, at least as far as Minister McDowell is concerned and one reckons he should know. The money allocated to the Secret Service is in fact money allocated to a fund administered by the Department of Finance which allocates it on request to various Government departments.

Clear it all up for you? No, me neither. A little more digging finds another question, this time to the Minister for Finance, about the administration of the scheme from comrade O Snodaigh, who seems to have got a bee in his bonnet on this one. The purpose of the Secret Service Fund is "to obtain information which is necessary for the security of the country".

Nothing like a clear and specific focussed definition to ensure there is no grey area. Only information necessary for the security of the country.

So would this include money allocated to the Department of Transport perhaps? To find out who's picketing airports as part of anti-war protests?

Who can tell, for the Government refuses to divulge further information saying "Given the sensitivities associated with a (fund) of this nature, it is not possible to provide information on the persons who administer it.

As regards accounts, details will not be published, for the same reason."

So, we're not sure what the money is spent on, who spends it, who administers it or what it's used for. Nervous? So was I, but then relief emerged when the Government stated that the fund was audtied by the Comptroller and Auditor General. (C & AG)

"The C & AG is furnished with certificates from the responsible Ministers which support the expenditure shown in the account."

Well, if the C & AG is looking after it, the people of Ireland can sleep easily in their beds knowing a scheme operated for the security of the state without any oversight worth talking about is in fact, audited.

(Details about the Irish Secret Service and notes for this piece can be found in the published Estimates for 2003 and for 2004 and also through parliamentary questions put to the Ministers of Finance and Justice, Equality and Law Reform by Deputy Aengus O Snodaigh)