GARDAÍ ARE investigating the use of data from several Irish passports by members of a Russian spy ring uncovered in the US earlier this year, including one belonging to a volunteer with an Irish charity which works with orphans in Russia.
Debbie Deegan, managing director of To Russia With Love, has confirmed that the Garda last week contacted a female volunteer with the charity to inform her that her passport had been compromised.
US investigators broke up the spy ring in June with the arrest of 10 people in New York, Boston, New Jersey and Virginia. All 10, who were later deported as part of a spy swap deal with Russia, admitted conspiring to act as unregistered foreign agents.
Describing as “distressing” the news that a volunteer’s passport details had been stolen, Ms Deegan said the charity had no information about how it may have happened. “To our knowledge our office system was not tampered with at any stage.”
Ms Deegan, whose organisation has helped more than 5,000 abandoned and orphaned children across the Russian Federation since it was set up in 1998, said the issue was an “unwelcome distraction [from] the good work we do.” The charity is facing a serious funding shortfall due to the recession.
“We need €450,000 a year to survive and help the children we love and care for,” said Ms Deegan. “We look forward to this issue being resolved so we can refocus our energies on the children and the challenge to raise funds to help support them.”
In July, Eunan Gerard Doherty, from Carndonagh, Co Donegal, was interviewed by Garda after it emerged his passport details were used by one of the 10 agents.
Mr Doherty, a part-time fireman, had travelled to Russia on holiday in 2005. It is understood his wife Maureen has been told by Garda that her passport may also have been compromised.
Documents released by the US justice department allege that one of the 10 spies, who used the assumed name Richard Murphy, flew to Rome last February where he was instructed to collect a forged Irish passport in the name of Eunan Gerard Doherty before flying on to Moscow.
The spy was married to another agent, who called herself Cynthia Murphy. The couple lived in the New Jersey suburb of Montclair with their two young children.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said investigations by the Garda and the Passport Office were ongoing. She added that the department could not comment on individual cases.
A spokesman for the Russian embassy in Dublin said it had not been approached by the Irish authorities about the matter, and had only yesterday learned that a passport belonging to a volunteer with To Russia With Love had been compromised.
The issue is likely to be discussed during a planned visit by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin to Russia in December.