The National Security Analysis Centre (NSAC), established six years ago as an intelligence clearing house for government, is to be wound down as an independent body.
As part of a restructuring of the country’s intelligences services, the centre is to be folded into a national security secretariat, which will provide analysis and administrative support for high-level government and security officials.
The centre has a staff of 12, comprising civil servants and personnel seconded from the Garda and Defence Forces.
It was established in 2019, following a recommendation from the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland for a permanent structure to “synthesise intelligence and information, whether from Irish agencies, foreign liaison partners or open sources, and to provide the Taoiseach with regular threat analyses”.
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One of its main functions was to draft a national security strategy. This was originally due to be published in 2021 but remains unfinished and its completion will now be taken over by the secretariat.
The restructuring of Ireland’s secretive national security apparatus follows concerns raised by senior security figures over the years about its effectiveness.
More broadly, intelligence officers from An Garda Síochána have long been reluctant to share certain intelligence with other officials due to fears it would be leaked.
Gardaí have raised concerns behind closed doors that officials are not put through the same high-level vetting procedures as their counterparts in other European Union countries.
In particular, the Garda and occasionally the Defence Forces have been reluctant to share intelligence passed on by security services in other countries. Ireland lacks a dedicated high-level system of security clearances.
This has at times stymied the work of the centre, which was designed to prepare intelligence analysis for the National Security Committee, a body composed of high-level representatives from the departments of Justice, Defence, Foreign Affairs and Environment, Climate and Communications as well as the Garda Commissioner and Defence Forces Chief of Staff.
In response to queries, a spokeswoman for the Department of the Taoiseach, which houses the NSAC, said it would form part of the new secretariat.
As well as drafting the national security strategy, the secretariat will “also convene a dedicated structure of working groups to support and monitor the delivery of Government’s national security commitments,” she said.
One of the secretariat’s main functions will be supporting the newly announced National Security Council, a ministerial-level body chaired by the Taoiseach. The council will fill a gap left when the last ministerial-level body, known as Cabinet committee F, was wound up in 2020.
The council will meet three times a year and receive information from the National Security Committee.
The Government has also committed to reviewing all military structures and introducing a “a ring-fenced security budget” for the Garda, so intelligence officers will not have to compete with regular policing bureaus for resources.
