‘He was ready for a job like the one in Lisbon’

I’ve worked in Holland,’ he has insisted. ‘If the Dutch had their choice again they’d change it back. You take the genie out of the bottle, you’re never going to get it back again.

‘You tell some 17-year-old who is smoking a joint on their way to school: “Well it’s not illegal, so it must be OK, it can’t be too harmful.” That’s my take on it.’

Although described by those who have met him as measured, polite and mannerly, he has never had any problem speaking his mind. For instance he made it clear in 2017 that it was ‘not my choice to retire’ when he had reached the compulsory retirement age of 60.

Obviously not ready to put his feet up, he instead interviewed for the role as chief executive with MAOC, which is made up of police and customs people from seven different nations and who investigate and track drug shipments throughout the Atlantic seas.

‘He was ready for a job like the one in Lisbon,’ says our source. ‘Ideally he should have stayed here, with all his expertise, but that’s not the way the guards work unfortunately. But how interesting for him, to have gone from working on the street, busting small time Dublin drug dealers, to witnessing the rise of the Kinahans and the dramatic changes in the Irish drug world, to now working on one of the main sources for drugs in Europe, to where it all starts.’

Just two years in and his organisation has hit record heights.

The fight against drugs is clearly not over for Michael O’Sullivan — it’s just the beginning of a whole new phase.