Gardaí are not currently investigating allegations relating to Ireland contained in the Epstein sex trafficking files, including from a woman claiming she was trafficked to Ireland as a 13-year-old.
The Labour Party has responded to the news by urging the Taoiseach to direct an investigation to take place, saying other European countries had already started inquiries into crimes alleged to have taken place within their borders.
Garda Headquarters confirmed to The Irish Times no investigation was under way into claims by a woman she was trafficked to Ireland for sexual exploitation at the hands of “politicians and notable men”.
“An Garda Síochána has no record of any referral or formal complaint being received on this matter,” Garda Headquarters said in reply to queries.
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“Any formal complaint of alleged criminal activity made to An Garda Síochána is treated with the utmost seriousness and fully investigated.”
Labour’s spokesman on foreign affairs, trade and defence, Duncan Smith, called on Micheál Martin to intervene and ensure any claims in the Epstein files related to Ireland were properly investigated.
“There is a political dimension to the fallout from the Epstein files and it is incumbent on the Taoiseach to direct the arms of State to investigate fully the extent of the Epstein files fallout,” he said.
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“Three European countries – Norway, Latvia and Lithuania – have undertaken some form of inquiry or investigation following the release of these files. Ireland must act in a similar manner.”
Comment has been sought from the Taoiseach’s office.
Allegations were made by an unidentified woman to the FBI’s national threat operations centre. A threat intake officer there compiled the allegations into an email which he sent to law enforcement colleagues in October 2024.
The email was among the tranche of 3.5 million documents related to the Epstein case released by the US department of justice the week before last.
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The email sets out how the woman claimed she was trafficked for sexual purposes. She claimed she was “taken from an apartment she was living in” when aged five years and “cut in the throat” before being moved to Fresno, California, about two years later and “taken again” to an unspecified location aged 12-13 years.
She was then brought to Paris where she was raped by three men, she said, who were part of an organisation that “take naked photos of young girls”.
After Paris she “flew to Ireland for politicians and notable men”, the email says, summarising the woman’s claims. “They would have sex with the young women and she was taken from Ireland and brought to Jeffrey Epstein island when she was 13 years old.”
The woman said she was living in Germany, seeking asylum, at the time she made her allegations to the FBI. She further claimed she had photographs to prove she had been to Epstein’s island.
Though no year is stated for the alleged trafficking for sexual exploitation to Ireland, the timeline states it was before she turned 14. She claimed she was then on Epstein’s island when skateboarding global star Tony Hawk got married there.
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Hawk has since issued a statement saying he never met Epstein or went to his island – Little Saint James in the US Virgin Islands. He said the references to his having been on the island, and wedding there, were part of a “narrative of nonsense”.
Hawk also set out the locations and years of his four marriages, which he said took place in California in 1990, San Diego in 1996, Fiji in 2006 and at Adare Manor, Co Limerick, in 2015.
