A former Secretary of State has said that it would be "extraordinarily serious and would have far reaching implications" if Peter Hain's computer had been hacked into while he was in charge of Northern Ireland.
Yesterday (Tuesday) the Guardian newspaper claimed that there was an ongoing Metropolitan Police investigation into the possible hacking of Mr Hain's computer by a private detective working for News International journalists.
It has led to calls by DUP MP Nigel Dodds for the Leveson inquiry into Press standards to examine hacking in Northern Ireland.
He said "that until that work is done they will not have completed their work".
The DUP and Sinn Féin have long believed their phones were hacked. The DUP is particularly concerned about stories that appeared concerning the MPs' expenses scandal and Iris Robinson.
Shaun Woodward succeeded Mr Hain as Secretary of State in 2007. He said: "A Northern Ireland Secretary has access to the top secret information and is privy to most of the nation's secrets."
However Mr Woodward added that he always received highly classified material in hard copy or in verbal briefings, not in emails.
"The more likely risk is that seemingly innocuous information, for instance about venues and times for meetings, could be pieced together to form patterns of political activity. If a private detective attempted to check it up with the wrong person a piece of travelling detail could seriously compromise security," he said.
Labour MP Tom Watson, who sits on the Parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking, said: "If these accusations are true, they are the most serious yet of the hacking scandal. They go to the heart of national security and I am sure the intelligence services will wish to look at it."
Owen Paterson, the current Secretary of State, stated categorically: "We are not involved in the Metropolitan Police's ongoing police investigation."
A Northern Ireland Office spokeswoman said: "The Metropolitan Police have told us that NIO systems aren't involved. I can't talk about Peter Hain's computer or any other element of the investigation."
The NIO's computer security is similar to the PSNI's.
Mr Hain was also Secretary of State for Wales and had to travel there frequently as well as attending Westminster. This may have led to him relying on his personal email account, which would have been less secure than the NIO system, to a greater extent than Mr Woodward.
A former senior civil servant with knowledge of the system during Mr Hain's time said: "We tried to get a way for people to access it from home but it proved impossible. It took about an hour to log in and a lot of equipment, so it had to be abandoned."
He added that, if the system was breached, it would contain "the most sensitive material".
Background
Peter Hain was Northern Ireland Secretary between May 2005 and June 2007.
At the time, the security threat here was declining and the main development was the signing of the St Andrews Agreement in October 2006. This was followed by devolution of policing powers to Stormont.
The details of what went on would have been of limited interest to tabloid papers like the News of the World.
