The chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Mr Jim Mitchell, has said he has prima Mitchell facie evidence that gardai accessed telephone records of a newspaper and members of the Houses of the Oireachtas. He later said: "I suspect it applied to all newspapers."

The telephone records gave an account of all calls made to and from journalists and the politicians concerned. They included the telephone numbers calls were made from, and the duration of the calls.

Gardai examined these records, he maintained, during their investigation into leaks from the Department of Foreign Affairs to the media during the presidential election campaign last year.

Mr Mitchell would not say which newspaper he was referring to other than it belonged to "a major group".

Mr Mitchell was speaking at yesterday's meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, which was being attended for the first time by the Data Protection Commissioner, Mr Fergus Glavey. The meeting was considering the financial reports for Mr Glavey's office, covering the years 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997.

Mr Mitchell said he was very concerned about what he felt was a lacuna in the law which meant telephone and credit card/bank card records can be accessed by anybody. Meanwhile, he said State agencies are prevented by the Data Protection Act from exchanging information which would prevent the taxpayer "being ripped off for a possible £100 million".

"Citizens have a right to come to a journalist or politician in confidence," he said. Saying the situation was "very worrying" he added that he was not aware of any extensive abuse but was "speaking as a former Minister for Justice who knows the system".

Agreeing with Mr Mitchell that there were no safeguards on who had access to telephone and credit/bank card records, Mr Glavey said there were two factors involved in the Data Protection Act (1988). "Privacy is not an absolute right," he said. The Act "tries to seek a balance. Everywhere it gives a right, it gives an exception to it." He pointed out that though the records of phone calls could be accessed they could not be listened to legally. The provisions of the relevant (1993) Act were rigidly enforced, he said, and subject to supervision by two High Court judges.