GARDAÍ HAVE arrested two teenagers in connection with the hacking of Fine Gael’s website in January.

The party had replaced its regular homepage with an election-focused one asking the public to submit suggestions of issues to tackle and to ‘join the conversation’. In the hacking attack, the new site was replaced with a holding page marked ‘Anonymous’. The hacked page said that the site was censoring visitors.

Fine Gael subsequently said that the personal data of around 2,000 people who had registered to comment on the site had been compromised in the attack.

Gardaí today searched two houses in Co Galway and Co Offaly and seized computers and other media equipment. The items were removed for forensic examination. A quantity of equipment and chemicals associated with drug production were also found during the search in Co Offaly.

Two boys, aged in their late teens, were arrested and are being detained this evening at stations in Galway and Tullamore Garda Stations under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.

The arrests are understood to be part of a wider international investigation into hacking attacks by a group of loosely-aligned hackers called Anonymous. The investigation has resulted in arrests in the UK and the US.

The Metropolitan Police in London today charged two people in connection with the ongoing investigation.