Russian activity in Ireland ‘should come as no surprise to anyone’ – Harris

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Louise Thomas

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Russian activity in Ireland should come as no surprise to anyone, the Irish premier has said.

Taoiseach Simon Harris was commenting after a report that Russian intelligence allegedly recruited an Irish politician as an agent.

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.

Asked about the report by media in Dublin on Sunday, Mr Harris said he would not comment on matters of security.

“Other than to say more broadly, it shouldn’t come as any surprise to any of us that Russia seeks to influence public opinion, seeks to distort public opinion and is active in relation to that across the world and that Ireland is not immune from that,” he said.

“We’ve also seen a very significant increase in that level of activity since the brutal invasion by Russia of Ukraine.

“Gardai and our security services take all of these issues extremely seriously and monitor these issues seriously, and work with international counterparts on all these matters, and I have great confidence in the ability of gardai, working with international counterparts.”

Pressed on whether he knows who the alleged agent is, Mr Harris said: “We never comment on this kind of thing. I’m not sure of any country does comment in relation to security matters.

“But I can tell you that as Taoiseach I am satisfied that our gardai and our intelligence services working internationally with counterparts take this issue very very seriously.”

People Before Profit Solidarity TD Richard Boyd-Barrett said anyone corrupted by any external power has a serious case to answer.

He said: “It’s sort of James Bond-like isn’t it?

“I think anybody who has been corrupted by any external power rather than serving the interests of ordinary people has a serious case to answer, but of course our own Government is completely in hock to the US and big multi-national corporations.

“I’ve no time for the Putin regime or any of their spies in this country but neither do I have any time for the US or western governments who continue to arm Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”