There are copies on the way.
Checks show that there is a record that the telephone subscriber's telephone was first reported out of order on Saturday, 29 October at 10.36 a.m. The report was stated to have been made from another telephone in the Sutton area, the number of which was quoted. Only faults on high priority subscribers' lines get attention at week-ends and this subscriber's phone did not qualify for such treatment. Another fault is recorded as having been reported at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday, 1 November, the first working day after the bank holiday. The name or telephone number of the person reporting the fault on the morning of 1 November is not recorded but according to statements in the news media the report was made by the subscriber himself. The relevant docket prepared by the staff in the fault report centre is noted to the effect "old person in house", "urgent". Both of these faults were reported to the telephone operating staff at the fault report centre. The two fault reports were passed by the telephone operating staff to the technician staff at the Belcamp fault repair centre on the morning of 1 November; the precise time is not recorded but it is believed to have been between 9.30 a.m. and 10.20 a.m.
The line is recorded as having been diagnostically tested at the repair centre on 1 November by the staff, and the circuit was found to be normal, giving a ringing tone but no reply from the subscriber. There was nothing unusual about this as many lines reported faulty are found to be working when tested by the repair centre staff. No further action was regarded as called for by the repair staff. There is no record of the subscriber's house having been visited by any repair staff that day and there would have been no need for them to do so in the circumstances.
I should perhaps explain at this point that it has been reported in the news media that one of the Department's staff who had been interviewed by the Garda had said that he had been told by the subscriber's wife that the phone went out of order on Friday, 28 October and was out of order on Saturday, 29 October, but "came back" on Monday, the bank holiday. It was claimed in the Sunday Tribune last Sunday that this could not have been so because it had not been reported out of order until Tuesday, 1 November. In fact, as I have already stated, the telephone was reported as being out of order on Saturday, 29 October, but no action was taken on the report until Tuesday, 1 November, the next working day. It is not abnormal for service to come back of its own accord and, indeed, no repairs were carried out on 1 November on foot of the fault reports made on 29 October and 1 November, the circuit having been found to be working normally when tested.
The next contact by the subscriber that I am aware of was made on Monday, 7 November, when he phoned the Department's depot at Distillery Road which does not cover his own area but where an official with whom he is acquainted works. This official was not there at the time and he spoke to another staff member. The latter understood the complaint to have been about loose wires and this was reported by the staff member concerned to the repair staff at Belcamp. In the belief that it was the external wiring leading from the pole serving the subscriber to the house that was involved, departmental staff visited the area on 7 November and inspected the external wiring serving the subscriber in question as well as some others in the area, but found no wires down. The examination carried out was a visual one and the repair staff did not regard it as necessary to call to the subscriber's premises and would not ordinarily do so in such circumstances.
The subscriber called to Distillery Road depot on the same or the next day and met the official with whom he was acquainted. That official, however, had no direct involvement in the type of work in question and did not become involved in the further treatment of the case. This is significant for reasons which I will explain later.
The subscriber called to the Department's depot at Russell Street, the headquarters for that area, on 8 or 9 November and spoke to an engineering superintendent there. The subscriber explained that some time previously three men purporting to be Post Office staff arrived at his house and installed a wire at the back of the house which they said was for use in connection with the telephone. He also said that they appeared to have a post office van. He indicated that he himself was not there when they called but his wife who was in the house on her own when the men called noted that one of the men stood in front of the door of the van. He added that his wife was suspicious of what the men were doing and that the work was of a very shoddy nature, not like Post Office work. In reply to a question he said that his wife had not sought any identification from them. The subscriber made no reference to finding a microphone or transmitter or to Mr. Mallon being involved.
So far as this engineering superintendent could ascertain none of the installation staff under his control was involved and he therefore contacted the repair centre at Belcamp to inquire if any staff from there had been to the house. He was told there was no record of any staff there having done so. He then spoke to the line technician at Belcamp and asked him to call to the house and to check the installation of the wire with a view to establishing if it was official or otherwise. This having been arranged, the subscriber left. The engineering superintendent concluded something irregular had occurred as the subscriber had told him that the line to his telephone was directed in through the front of the house whereas the three men had placed a wire at the rear of the house without apparently making any effort to remove the wire at the front. He also formed the view that the subscriber was very concerned about the standing of the three men.
The line technician, as arranged, called to the subscriber's house on, so far as he can recall, the evening of 9 November but it may have been on 8 November — the precise date is not, in any event, of any particular importance. When he entered the house he picked up the telephone which is situated in the hall and found it working. The telephone is connected from a distribution point at the front of the house and was not near the loose wiring. The line technician inspected the wiring in the kitchen at the rere of the house. The subscriber's wife pointed out the wire which was coming down the external wall from a hole which had been drilled through the wall about six inches from the window and about six feet above floor level — these are approximate, being the technician's recollection of the facts. The wire was run straight down the wall and led under the carpet. When he pulled at the wire to see where it was going, the end came up in his hand as it was leading nowhere. There was nothing attached to the end of the wire. He inspected the wire from the outside but beyond seeing it extending through a tree to an ESB pole, he could not say where it ended — he had no ladder and this would have been needed to examine it further. The clips holding the wire to the eaves of the house were of a kind which he believed could be bought in any store.
From his examination the technician suspected that the work was not done by Post Office staff but deferred forming a firm opinion until he had traced the other end of the wire over the builder's yard. He told the subscriber's wife he would call back the following day to carry out a further examination. She said she would not be there that day and he indicated that he would ring her later in the week.
He asked the subscriber's wife about who had done the wiring and when. She said the men arrived on the morning of 1 November in what appeared to be a Post Office van. In reply to questions, she said she did not see the fleet number of the van or the Posts and Telegraphs sign as one of the men had stood in front of the door of the vehicle, that she did not ask them for nor did they produce identity cards, that they gave as their reason for the work that they were rewiring for a new exchange which was opening in the area, and that they could not finish the work as there was a strike on in Athlone. She did not supply any description of the men. She added that the men wanted to bring the wire in through the open window but that she objected and told them they would have to drill a hole in the wall. She had been minding her grandson on the day the work was done and when her son called to collect the child, he remained on until they had left. No mention was made to the technician of a microphone, a transmitter or of any association with Mr. Mallon.
The technician formed the opinion that the van used was a Renault, of the type used by the Department. He told the subscriber's wife that he thought the men might have been planning a robbery at the time. He formed the impression that the subscriber's wife suspected that the work was not done by Post Office staff. On the following day the technician, with the local lineman, went to a lane at the back of the subscriber's house and traced the wire from an ESB pole, along the top of the wall surrounding the builder's yard, to a point about 30 metres away where it came down and was lying on waste ground. It was not connected to anything. They left the wire where they found it. The two men did not enter the house as they had been told the subscriber's wife would not be there.
Having considered the matter, the technician concluded that the work was not done by Post Office staff. He reached this conclusion on the basis of the position of the hole in the wall of the house and of its size — it was bigger than it normally should be — the facts that there was no bracket on the eave of the house, that the wire was lying limp going through the branches of the tree contrary to Post Office practice as this would have resulted in an earthing fault quickly, and because of the way in which the wire was bound in on the bracket on the ESB pole and of the manner in which the wire was slung along the wall. The technician telephoned the subscriber's wife on 11 November and told her of the opinion he had formed that the work was not done by Post Office staff and told her she would be well advised to ring the Garda in Howth in case her house was going to be robbed. She thanked him but did not comment otherwise.
Recent newspaper reports indicate that the hole in the wall through which the wire came when the premises were inspected by the Department's technician was drilled by the subscriber and not by the three men. It follows that the wire coming through the hole and down along the wall was also placed there by the subscriber. I quote from the article by Vincent Browne in the Sunday Tribune which said:
When Michael Moyna saw this later on in the evening of 1 November, he bored a hole through the 18" outside wall and was about to thread the wire through it when he discovered the microphone. After he had discovered the microphone he threaded the wire through the hole anyway, so that the wire would be visible for the P and T officials and anybody else who was to examine it later. Mrs. Moyna forgot to inform Séamus Moran of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs that it was her husband — not the installation team — who had bored the hole.
If these reports are correct, these facts were not brought to the notice of the technician who visited the house. That these were not brought to his notice is confirmed in the report in last Sunday's issue of the Sunday Tribune. The result was that the work inspected by the Post Office technician was not that done by the three men but at least in significant part by the subscriber himself and the technician can testify only to the standard of the work he saw. The Department's conclusions in this matter were based on the assumption that the work they saw was that done by the three men; the technician concerned was not, of course, aware of a microphone and transmitter having been found. The result was that the Post Office inspection was, in effect, of quite an unreal situation and bore very little relationship to the actual position.
The technician discussed the matter with his engineering superintendent — this engineering superintendent was not one of those on whom the subscriber called earlier. The technician said he did not think the wiring was carried out by Post Office staff and expressed the view that it might have been placed there as part of a plan to carry out a robbery in the house. So far as the engineering superintendent was aware there were no plans to improve the telephone service at that address and therefore the wiring at the rear of the house had nothing to do with the working of the telephone. He was reinforced in his suspicions when he received a report about the same time that men in the Portmarnock area had been inquiring about Northern Telecom telephones. It was most unusual to have as many as three men in groups engaged on light repair work and, particularly, working from a Renault van, as a larger vehicle is needed for three men. Having examined the diaries of staff under his control and having established that none of them was due to be in that area on 1 November, the engineering superintendent reported the incident at Howth Garda Station on 14 November and furnished a report to his district headquarters. He also telephoned the subscriber's wife on that day and told her that so far as he could establish the three men who called on 1 November were not Post Office staff under his control and he advised her to notify the Garda as the only conclusion he could come to was that the house was being inspected for a robbery.
I might add that the engineering superintendent whom the subscriber had contacted at Russell Street depot telephoned the subscriber's wife about 11 November — he cannot be certain of the exact date — to confirm that engineering staff had called. She confirmed that she had a visit from a Post Office official who had found an additional wire coming from the rear of the house but she made no reference to any other items having been found. The engineering superintendent told her that he felt she should get in touch with the Garda, but she replied that her husband was looking after the matter and thanked the engineering superintendent for his help.
I should say that in some instances, as I have indicated, it is not possible to be certain of the precise dates for certain events, but where there was any doubt I have indicated that. In any event, I do not regard precise dates after 1 November as having any particular significance or of having any special importance insofar as the events concerned my Department.
I have had further inquiries made by my Department's investigation staff recently. These have not thrown any new light of substance on the matter except in one instance. In that case an officer at the Department's Distillery Road depot who was an acquaintance of the subscriber, and to whom I have referred earlier, indicated that he had been told by the subscriber about the microphone and transmitter and of the association with Mr. Mallon. That officer is responsible for major overhead maintenance works and, as I mentioned earlier, was not involved in the treatment of the case. He took it that the subscriber was looking for advice from him in a personal capacity and, on the basis that the problem had already been reported and was having attention, he did not pass on the information he obtained. If he had done so, the matter would have been treated differently by the Department. In fairness to him, it would appear that the subscriber did not expect him to pass on the information because, according to reports in the news media, he did not want Post Office personnel to be aware of the details. The fact that this officer was so aware came to light only last week when he was interviewed in some further inquiries being made by my Department.
That is a full account of the position insofar as my Department's direct involvement in the matter is concerned and I would hope that it may be helpful in shedding light on the events surrounding this case. The thought that anyone might seek to invade the privacy of another as in this case is something to be deplored in the strongest possible terms.
This action, it would appear, had nothing to do with the telephone service and there was, apparently, no attempt to connect the wire in question to the telephone line in any way. As the Dáil will be aware, action was taken last year in the Postal and Telecommunications Services Bill to introduce heavy penalties for those intercepting or attempting to intercept telephone calls, except in duly authorised circumstances, but it is clear that interception of telephone calls was not the target in this instance.
I propose to deal now with the alleged tapping of the telephone of the subscriber concerned which was given some prominence over the last few days, following a report in the Sunday News. It is clear that what is alleged here is the existence of an unauthorised tap. What was claimed in that newspaper was that the subscriber's telephone was tapped at a roadside junction box called a “cabinet” about 500 yards from the subscriber's home. Some details were given of how this was alleged to have been done and the report went on to claim that the method of tapping involved was often used in Northern Ireland by both the IRA and by Army and police intelligence for operations which cannot be officially authorised or acknowledged. The report quoted Post Office officials in the Republic as the sources of this information in regard to the tapping of the phone.
It is the position that for many housing estates and built-up areas in Dublin telephone service is provided from what are called distribution cabinets. These are locked steel-clad cabinets, usually placed on footpaths, as stated in the report. Normally big cables are led out from exchanges to a convenient central location and distributed from there along various roads to provide service to individual subscribers. Indeed, some of the Sutton area is served from a cable distribution cabinet. In describing the general position the report is correct and what was said may sound quite plausible.
But — and this is the critical and only factor of relevance — Bord Telecom Éireann who have checked the matter at my request have informed me that telephone service for the subscriber concerned is not provided from a distribution cabinet as claimed in the report — I repeat "not". In fact, the cable is led directly from the local exchange via an underground cable to a distribution pole within 50 metres of the subscriber's house, and service from there is provided via an overhead drop wire to the house. The cable is not led from a distribution cabinet about 500 yards from the house, as was stated in the report; it is led from a distribution pole not more than 50 metres away. I might say that this house was served from a distribution cabinet up to June 1983, when, in a re-arrangement of cables in the area to meet more applications, this subscriber as well as some others had their cables changed from the distribution cabinet. I will leave it to the House to judge the reliability of that report in the light of those facts and of the motives of those who invented this story.
I should say, nevertheless, that following the report, the distribution pole was checked on Monday, 27 February. There was no tap on it when inspected and there was no evidence that one had ever been placed on it. The condition of the wire was such that it is believed that if it had been interfered with in this way it would be possible to detect this now.
