Daily Ireland

**Via News Hound

Master of intelligence

Jarlath Kearney
To comment: j.kearney@dailyireland.com

During the past seven days, most Irish media coverage of Tony Blair’s cabinet reshuffle has focused on Peter Hain’s appointment as the North’s new secretary of state.
While Mr Hain is now the British government’s public face in terms of political developments in the North, he is strictly a part-timer – retaining his previous job as secretary of state for Wales.
The legwork in any endgame multiparty negotiations over the next 12 months will be handled directly by Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell.
Of much greater significance, however, is the destination of Mr Hain’s immediate predecessor, Paul Murphy.
The reputedly affable Mr Murphy has been appointed chairman of the British government’s intelligence and security committee. This parliamentary committee is made up of MPs and is bound by the Official Secrets Act “ring of secrecy”.
It has the statutory responsibility for overseeing the expenditure, administration and policy of Britain’s intelligence agencies, specifically MI5, MI6 and the bugging centre GCHQ.
The committee also hears evidence from other key elements of the British intelligence community, such as the joint intelligence committee and one of that committee’s key officials — the security and intelligence co-ordinator.
Ostensibly, Mr Murphy’s committee is designed to give a sense of public accountability and transparent oversight regarding the intelligence services.
In recent years, it has assumed a developing function in terms of agenda-setting and effective lobbying. This has contributed to the committee becoming an increasingly more influential entity.
Prior to last week’s appointment, Paul Murphy had already worked closely with the intelligence agencies (notably MI5) on strategic and operational matters during his tenure as secretary of state for the North.
Given that he was bound to personally authorise warrants for intelligence activities such as vehicle tracking and telephone bugging, Mr Murphy was at the heart of operational intelligence activities since moving to Stormont Castle in October 2002.
This issue of ministerial oversight of operational intelligence activities is currently a critical aspect of the debate relating to the devolution of policing and justice powers to a locally accountable assembly.
Without doubt, Mr Murphy has his finger on the pulse of this specific negotiation from the perspective of British intelligence agencies.
In general terms, Mr Murphy’s appointment highlights a wider pattern in which key British intelligence and law enforcement appointments are being filled by figures with a track record in the North.
In October 2003, the Home Office appointed former RUC superintendent Bryan Bell as the new national co-ordinator of Special Branch. In February 2005, former RUC/PSNI chief constable Ronnie Flanagan was promoted to become Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary – a key position in terms of law enforcement and intelligence developments throughout Britain and the North.
Perhaps most significantly for Mr Murphy, Bill Jeffrey — the latest security and intelligence co-ordinator at the Cabinet Office — took up appointment in April 2005.
Mr Jeffrey is now the permanent secretary with responsibility as accounting officer for the funding of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. As such, he will be obliged to work with and provide evidence before Mr Murphy’s new committee.
Of course, Mr Jeffrey was the director of political development at the Northern Ireland Office between 1998 and 2002.
Given that Mr Murphy was the minister for political development between 1997 and 1999, both men have at the very least a baseline working relationship already established.
One of the items on Mr Jeffrey’s initial agenda is the report of Quentin Thomas, another former NIO mandarin. Mr Thomas was strategically reviewing the “valuable service” of open-source intelligence gathering “provided to both government departments and to the [intelligence] agencies” by the BBC.
The centrality of the positions now held by Mr Murphy and Mr Jeffrey in relation to intelligence and security policy developments in the North is readily apparent.
In February 2005, Mr Murphy, as secretary of state, publicly confirmed that MI5 would have complete primacy on all national intelligence matters in the North by 2007.
This recommendation ostensibly arose following the review conducted by yet another former NIO mandarin, John Chilcott.
Interagency negotiations between Special Branch, military intelligence and MI5, in order to streamline this development, are said to be at the “detailed planning” stage.
However, the key stumbling block remains the failure to provide adequate financial resources to permit MI5 to complete the takeover — an obstacle to which Mr Murphy and Mr Jeffrey will no doubt now turn their collective attention.
Meanwhile, the newly-formed Serious and Organised Crime Agency — a Home Office initiative to galvanise the intelligence-led law enforcement work of various government agencies — has assumed jurisdiction in the North.
This agency will supplement and probably supplant the current activity of the Organised Crime Task Force, which is anchored in the office of the NIO security minister.
In a highly controversial move in March 2005, the Home Office — again supported by Mr Murphy in his capacity as secretary of state — introduced the new Prevention of Terrorism Act in relation to the North. The act permitted the introduction of banning orders against those deemed political or terrorist subversives.
Neither the Policing Board nor any locally elected politicians have had any input or oversight whatsoever regarding this critical and developing trend of centrally controlled security and intelligence developments for the North.
Given that such moves went into overdrive during Mr Murphy’s tenure as secretary of state, there is little evidence to suggest that he set himself against the entrenchment of organisational sovereignty by the Home Office and MI5 in relation to the North.
On the contrary, Mr Murphy’s disposition and experience seem to have left him suitably qualified for appointment to one of the most sensitive positions in the British parliament.