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]
‘Look no further than the Irish government’
Asked in May 2026 by an eighteen-year-old in Ireland what intelligence opportunities exist for people from countries of no great international weight, Kiriakou’s answer was unqualified: “100% yes.”[3]
He restated the two specialisms in the same terms — “if there’s one thing that the Irish are especially good at, it’s anti-money laundering investigations. The Irish intelligence service and the Irish Garda are first class when it comes to anti-money laundering” — and again derived the counterterrorism strength from the traffic of the 1970s, when Irish militants went to Libya and Lebanon to be trained by Carlos the Jackal, whom he glosses as “the Osama bin Laden of the ’70s and ’80s.”[4][5]
The mechanism he names is penetration rather than analysis: the Irish government “got really, really good at recruiting spies to penetrate these various groups” — Irish and Northern Irish organisations, and international communist ones in league with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Abu Nidal Organisation, Carlos the Jackal and the Libyans — “and they’ve maintained that expertise. So if you’re interested in intelligence, look no further than the Irish government. They’re really good.”[5][6]