AN AMERICAN college that trains FBI agents is considering setting up a campus in Waterford to offer degree courses in intelligence.
The Institute for Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst, in the Pennsylvanian city of Erie, is understood to be in advanced talks with Waterford Institute of Technology and the local authorities.
Local Fine Gael TD John Deasy, a graduate of Mercyhurst, has encouraged links between the college and his home town.
A two-day conference in Dungarvan organised by the institute, which ends today, has attracted over 150 delegates from 15 countries to discuss “best practices in intelligence analysis”. Delegates included representatives from the intelligence and security services communities in Sweden, Czech Republic, Romania, the US, the UK, Canada, and Belgium.
Irish delegates included representatives from the Garda, the Criminal Assets Bureau, the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, the Revenue Commissioners, DCU and the Department of Justice.
Organisers hope the Global Intelligence Forum will become an annual event in Dungarvan.
Yesterday’s keynote speaker, former US secretary for homeland security Tom Ridge, said Mercyhurst was “a model for intelligence education” and hopes to develop a centre in Dungarvan.
Mr Ridge, the main security adviser to former president George W Bush following the 9/11 attacks, said the world was now a safer place following improved intelligence gathering and the sharing of information between the United States and its allies.
He said the greatest threat to international stability came from “the administration in Iran” and its support for Hamas and Hizbullah. Asked if he agreed with Mr Ridge’s analysis, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, who also attended the conference, said the Government had “very strong views in relation to the type of regime that they have in Iran”.
But he added that the best way forward was “by talking to people with reasonable voices . . . there are reasonable voices in Iran”.