The Government has asked former Chief Justice John Murray to oversee a review of the laws on phone surveillance.
The three month review will include all agencies with the power to put phones under surveillance.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald says she does not have any authority over the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission's decisions to monitor the phones of individual journalists.
However she says any review of the surveillance laws has to go beyond the Garda Ombudsman:
