The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, will raise the issue of monitoring of Irish communications with the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, at the EU General Affairs Council meeting on January 24th, the head of the Anglo-Irish division of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Gallagher, told the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday.
The move comes after attempts by the Department of Foreign Affairs to address the question of telephone, fax and e-mail interceptions with the British government.
The chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr Desmond O'Malley, said the Department's report on the issue had not "enormously added to our stock of wisdom".
"I have no doubt at all the Ambassador in London is doing the best he can, but I do strongly feel the issue should be raised at a political level," he said.
Senator Michael Lanigan (FF) said, "what has come out here is extremely disturbing, and the fact is that the British have decided they will not give information".
The official dealing with the matter said that he would not go beyond what he said on previous occasions, Mr Lanigan said: "The British government never comments on specific allegations into its intelligence activities."
Investigations began after allegations were made on a British TV channel last July that British intelligence intercepted Irish communications via a 13-storey tower in Cappenhurst, Cheshire.
Efforts have been made to ascertain the validity of the claims, but not to the committee's satisfaction, it emerged yesterday.