TD Catherine Murphy: I was afraid my mobile phone was bugged

Kildare North TD Catherine Murphy used ready-to-go mobile phones last year because she feared her conversations were being bugged.

The Leixlip-based campaigner had the security concerns during April last when she used Dail privilege rules to hit out at the ongoing delays to the State’s investigation into a series of controversial transactions by IBRC.

The TD told the Irish Examiner: “What we did was we took some advice on a range of different things, including our phones.

"Look, it was prudent that we took some advice, I won’t be behind the door.

“We took some advice, we had some little throwaway phones where if we were making contact with people we were making sure to protect the people who we would talk to.

“We used them from April. We still have them just from time to time, but we’ll use third parties if we’ve got to. "We were acutely aware that anyone who talked to us talked to us very confidentially, people who wouldn’t really want to be named.”

Asked who provided her with the advice, Ms Murphy said: “We got it from several sources and I really don’t want to go further than that. It was just prudent to consider those kind of things.”

A commission of inquiry was later set up to investigate the allegations about the IBRC but it has been suspended until after the general election.