Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín has called on Irish political parties to audit their members to see if anyone has received potential contact from Russian intelligence, after revealing he was approached to meet president Vladimir Putin in 2017.
As a then-member of Sinn Féin, Mr Toibin received the approach via a consultancy company in a number of phone calls.
He said he was offered a five-star hotel for the trade trip and later a meeting with Mr Putin.
His revelations follow a Sunday Times report that an Oireachtas member has been recruited by Russian intelligence as “an agent of influence”, a situation Mr Tóibín described as “extremely serious”.
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“Given the antidemocratic nature of Putin at the time I indicated that I wasn’t interested in that [2017] approach,” he told RTÉ radio on Monday.
“My instinct is that the Russian government is a government that has very, very antidemocratic instincts and [that] is not something that I would be interested in being associated with.”
Details of the contact were forwarded to Sinn Féin party officials, and the party has reportedly confirmed it did not send a representative to the event.
Mr Tóibín said although people might see a light side to the idea of Irish politicians being targeted, “the world is in a very, very serious situation with the war in Ukraine and given the fact that Ireland obviously plays a role within the European Union and can have influence on processes, there is no doubt in my mind that Ireland would be potentially a target for Russian espionage.”
Describing what he said was “very dangerous” potential undue influence from abroad, he called on Irish political parties to begin auditing their memberships for signs of other such approaches.
In the aftermath of the Sunday Times report, Taoiseach Simon Harris said nobody should be surprised by Russian attempts to influence and distort public opinion in Ireland.
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