A former driver for Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn Fein, was today revealed to have been working as a British agent after being taken into protective custody by his MI5 handlers.

Roy McShane, once part of the security team which looked after transport arrangements for the Republican leadership, had been reporting to intelligence services for a number of years and had today left the country after fleeing his West Belfast home, Sinn Fein disclosed.

Police tonight refused to comment on the disclosure, which is a further embarrassment for Mr Adams after the revelation two years ago that Denis Donaldson, one of his closest administrative aides, also worked for MI5.

Mr Donaldson, 56, who headed Sinn Fein’s support team at the Stormont Assembly, was later shot dead at an isolated cottage near Glenties in Co Donegal.

Shortly after Mr Donaldson's unmasking, intelligence sources spoke of their belief that there was another British agent even closer to Mr Adams. Senior Republicans reported turmoil over suspicions that Mr Donaldson's exposure was an attempt to protect this agent and said that potential suspects were being scrutinised, interviewed and their bank accounts checked.

Today, Sinn Fein said it had long harboured suspicions about the former driver.

Mr McShane, a former IRA man from the Clonard area of Belfast’s lower Falls, was once a driver for senior republicans, including around the time of the burgeoning peace process which led to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

While he was considered no more than a rank and file republican - he was described tonight by former associates as a “working class foot soldier” - his position would have allowed him to overhear highly sensitive information discussed by senior Republicans as he ferried them to and from the Castle Buildings where negotiations took place. He would have been on first name terms with all the top men and women in Sinn Fein, including Martin McGuinness, now deputy First Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Though Mr Donaldson was murdered five months after he was revealed as a spy, republicans insisted tonight said Mr McShane would not be subject to retribution if he returned home and claimed Sinn Fein had suspected him for a number of years.

A Sinn Fein spokesman said: “He is under no threat from republicans. If he wishes to return, it is up to him to make peace with his community and in particular his family.”

Though Sinn Fein insisted the disclosure came as no great surprise, in the local community where he drank, socialised and played golf, there was disbelief that someone in his position could have led a double life.

The Sinn Fein spokesman added: “We are not surprised by this development. The party leadership had concerns about this individual for some time over the past number of years.

“He was sidelined to the point of being removed from any work.”

In his privileged position, Mr McShane would have worked closely with the Sinn Fein team of bodyguards tasked with protecting Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness and would have been one of MI5’s top informers, getting paid to report regularly to his handlers.

Mr Adams is due to meet party members in Dublin tomorrow to discuss the Lisbon Treaty, but he is also certain to face questioning over the revelation.

The spokesman said: “Republicans will be disappointed but not surprised at the news."

“The man has left his family, they have to pick up the pieces and that is a matter for him to address.”

The opposition Democratic Unionist Party, however, seized upon his departure as possible evidence of a threat to his person. Jeffrey Donaldson, a senior MP for the DUP, said: “We will want to establish why he has been taken into protective custody, if indeed that is the case, and whether or not there’s some kind of threat from either the mainstream Provisional IRA or other republican elements.”

Alex Attwood, an SDLP Assembly member, said the truth about collusion must be told. “What we need to know is how high and how deep in Sinn Fein and other parts of the Provisional movement the penetration by police, army and security service agents went.

“We need to know the full extent of collusion between republican and loyalist groups and the security forces, and we need to know the full price of such collusion in terms of human life.”

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