Perhaps you are conducting an extramarital affair. Or maybe you are overly religious, and frequently steal a minute to pop into a church or a mosque.

The point is, all of this stuff is private. Nobody’s business but yours.

Except somebody is making it their business. You are under surveillance on behalf of a State agency. Your foibles are no longer private.

In fact, if an agent of the snooper so wished, you could be confronted with your personal foibles as a weapon of blackmail.

You could go to the cops. Except, perhaps elements of An Garda Síochána are in on the surveillance and as such compromised in any attempt to deal with your complaint. What can you do then but turn to the courts?

The scenario is one that may well end up being the focus of serious litigation if claims about covert surveillance in the Irish Prison Service are substantiated.

A senior prison officer has claimed in a High Court affidavit that covert surveillance was one of a number of examples of malpractice and possible illegality that he encountered at work.

The surveillance claim is being investigated by the Inspector of Prisons.

Separate to this, the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee yesterday received information that provides ballast to one element of the claim.

The whistleblower, assistant chief officer David McDonald, stated in his affidavit that a private investigation firm was employed to conduct the surveillance.

Now, in a letter to the PAC from the secretary general of the Department of Justice, it has been confirmed that the prison service did employ a private investigation firm — two, in fact — in 2011 and 2012.

The two firms were paid a cumulative total of €29,000. What exact service was provided for this fee is unknown.

“It is not possible from the information available to determine if these payments relate to the surveillance of prison staff. However, a copy of the invoices concerned have been forwarded to the Inspector of Prisons as part of her ongoing investigation,” wrote Aidan O’Driscoll, the secretary general of the Department of Justice.

The investigation by the inspector, Patricia Gilheaney, is restricted by the statute under which she was appointed. That notwithstanding, the Irish Examiner understands that she is making serious inroads examining the claims.

If it turns out that the claims stand up, the State has a serious issue.

The covert surveillance alleged included the placing of cameras in offices and common areas within a prison, and the placing of tracker devices on prison vehicles.

Another claim is that in at least one instance a tracker device was placed on a prison officer’s private car.

The premise for this surveillance was to track the movements of a small number of prison officers suspected of bringing contraband into the prison.

There is an issue here with legality. An Garda Síochána, and elements of the Defence Forces, can, in certain

circumstances, receive authorisation to conduct covert surveillance.

The prison service has no such mandate in investigating what would be illegal activity. That is a matter entirely for the gardaí.

Would the gardaí have been informed if covert surveillance was undertaken by a private investigation firm on behalf of the Irish Prison Service?

If so, an issue also arises for the police force.

There are a few bad apples in every barrel and the prison service is no different from any other line of work.

The problem arises when the prison officer who is not under suspicion — accounting for the vast majority of staff — gets caught up in the covert surveillance of a prison officer who is under suspicion.

For instance, if tracker devices were placed on prison vehicles, what of the innocent prison officer who found him or herself tracked?

They have done nothing wrong and are entitled to their privacy.

In the event that the surveillance is confirmed, it is highly likely that a whole host of prison officers may feel compelled to sue the State for a gross breach of their privacy.

Those who might be the focus of any surveillance could do likewise, albeit at a cost of explaining why exactly they were under surveillance.

The whole issue is messy, with the potential to get a lot messier. As with other aspects to the prison service, this issue — if there is an issue — may well have been dealt with through internal channels if there was any real oversight of the prison service.

Therein lies the biggest issue in today’s prison service. Unlike most other major agencies of State, this one has no real oversight body.

The Inspector of Prisons has an important remit but it does not have the teeth of an oversight body to which the Irish Prison Service is fully accountable.

There is no ombudsman, there is no Hiqa, there is nobody to challenge an apparent prevailing priority of keeping scandal at bay, keeping the lid on controversies, keeping up appearances.