TÁNAISTE MICHEÁL MARTIN has said he does not know the identify of a politician who was allegedly recruited as an agent by Russian intelligence, and was never briefed on the matter. 

The Sunday Times reported that Russian intelligence used a “honeytrap” to recruit the politician as an agent during the Brexit talks, with one of the aims being to undermine relations between Britain, Ireland and the EU.

The paper also reported that while the Irish military and security services identified the potential agent, code-named Cobalt, they remain in the country’s parliament.

Raising the matter in the Dáil today, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said “very serious allegations have been made against a member of the Oireachtas”.

“You’re the Minister for Defence, you receive national security briefings, you know who the individual is,” Tóibín said to Martin, before asking him what he would do to ensure the individual is held to account.

“First of all, I don’t know who the individual is,” Martin responded. 

“When I was Taoiseach… I received security briefings, but I was never told and never briefed that there was a spy in the Oireachtas.”

I’m actually very surprised at the degree to which everybody, herd-like, have just grabbed on the story and said: ‘This is it. Who is the person?’. I’m absolutely amazed.

The Tánaiste said there was a more fundamental question to be asked, adding that since he took over as Minister for Defence, he has never been briefed about a spy in the Oireachtas. 

“There may be, there may not be, but I’ve never been briefed.

“There’s an issue of accountability in terms of our intelligence services, because if this is true, then someone gave that information out and I don’t think that’s acceptable, actually.”

Martin said that future governments and the Oireachtas at large must be “clear-eyed” about the need for intelligence services in a democracy to have “an accountability chain”. 

“There is a national security strategy being developed. I would argue, we lack that at the moment. I’m not comfortable with the situation pertaining to intelligence.”

He concluded by saying that it is important that the country have intelligence and that the Defence Forces do “a very good job” in terms of intelligence gathering, ”

“I have concerns about how all of this has emerged into the public arena, real concerns about it, Deputy [Tóibín], and I’m somewhat surprised that politically, it’s all been in one direction, and not in the other.”

Earlier this week, Green Party TD Eamon Ryan called for the identity of the alleged Russia-linked politician to be publicly revealed.

Meanwhile, a number of Senators yesterday used their speaking time to declare that they were not Russian spies.