The websites of the Department of Justice and Finance suffered a DDOS attack by Anonymous last night. The attack was orchestrated through a number of twitter accounts affiliated with the Anonymous group. Messages from these accounts urged followers to engage in a Distributed Denial Of Service (DDOS) attack on the justice.ie and finance.gov.ie websites.

The reasoning behind these recent attacks are in response to the governments plans to reform the Irish copyright law, which is said to be the “Irish SOPA”.

It is also understood that the website of Sean Sherlock, who has proposed the law reform, is to come under attack at some stage today. An Irish supporter of Anonymous can be seen below tweeting the website to the group, along with a recommendation to add the website state.ie to the list of targets, which he later realised was not a government affiliated website.

Two teenagers were detained last night in connection with the hacking of the Fine Gael website earlier this year.

The Fine Gael site was alleged to have been targeted by Anonymous, the vigilante Internet group which has been responsible for a recent spate of attacks on companies and other organisations.

After raiding a house in Birr, Offaly, Donncha Carroll, 18 years old and also the son of independent counsellor John Carroll was detained.

Gardai also uncovered chemicals and equipment, which can be used in the manufacture of ecstasy, at the house in Offaly.

A second man was also detained after a raid on a house in Galway.

Evidence has been seized from both houses allegedly linking both of the accused to the attack on the Fine Gael website.

It is not yet known if the FBI are looking to question the two individuals regarding other crimes committed by Anonymous.

It was confirmed this morning that the Fine Gael website was hacked overnight by the Anonymous group.

The site, which is now back online was said to have been compromised due to bad coding.

There is also now privacy concerns for the public that have used and commented on the website as Evening Herald Journalist Kevin Doyle today said he was sent a copy of the site database of 3,800 people who used it to leave comments, including their names, email addresses, phone numbers, location and IP addresses.

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/ireland/eyididqlmhcw/#ixzz1AdISkwTg

Below is the message that greeted visitors to the Fine Gael 2011 Election website located at: http://wwwfinegael2011.com

“Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. Wake Up!”