John Kiriakou gave a series of speeches around Ireland — visiting Belfast, Cork, Dublin, and Waterford before continuing on to Scotland — during which he met with a number of European intelligence and law-enforcement officials.[1]
Anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism strength
Kiriakou says Irish intelligence and the Garda are first-class specifically at anti-money-laundering investigations, and separately notes they are also strong at counterterrorism. He traces the counterterrorism skill to the 1970s, when large numbers of Irish militants — mostly linked to Northern Irish and international communist groups aligned with organizations such as the PFLP, DFLP, and the Abu Nidal Organization — traveled to Libya and Lebanon to be trained by Carlos the Jackal. In Kiriakou’s account, the Irish government’s later skill at recruiting spies to penetrate those same groups grew directly out of that period, and the service has maintained that expertise since.[2]