HE was the former Provo godfather whose security company worked on the sets of such films as Veronica Guerin, The General and Michael Collins.

But he is now the subject of a €1.5m Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) probe, and many companies named as clients are distancing themselves from John Noonan's Dublin-based Strand Security Services (SSS).

Noonan – who became a leading IRA member in Dublin in the 1980s – sparked controversy when he was granted a private security licence despite featuring on the garda radar for over 20 years.

The situation led to political criticism of the licensing Private Security Authority (PSA), which was revived again last week when Fine Gael's justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan called for a review of its practices and procedures.

SSS, of which Noonan is an employee, is regarded as one of the busier security firms in the capital.

It has been a fixture on Irish film sets, with Angela's Ashes, The Butcher Boy, Intermission and the recent television series The Tudors among the projects it has worked on.

But in recent weeks a number of logos which had appeared on the SSS website, indicating clients of the company, have been taken down.

Many of these companies deny having had any direct dealings with the security agent.

Film Ireland, whose logo had been on the website, told the Sunday Tribune that while it was aware of its presence, it never had any direct dealings with the company.

A spokeswoman said: "We are aware of this; we had this issue before. Our logo should not have been up there because we don't deal with them at all."

Management at Croke Park said it had contacted SSS to ask it to remove its corporate logo from the website.

"We rang them some time ago to say that they have not been, or are, clients of Croke Park and we asked them to take us off the website," said a spokesman.

"We have not used SSS at all in Croke Park; they may have been involved with a band or something, so they may have been in Croke Park, but we would not have been aware of it."

O2, the FAI and music promotion company MCD said they had no knowledge of having had any direct relationship with SSS despite their logos being used. The website now simply states: "Our list of clients is available on request."

SSS may have been indirectly associated with various events hosted by the companies in question.

Tommy Kelly, a director of sss, said: "We got a guy to do the website and I don't know where he got a lot of the information but a lot of it was wrong. There was a mistake on it and we got that sorted."

He explained, however, that in the case of Croke Park, SSS had been employed by another firm for a concert at the ground.

Cab began to investigate Noonan, a former IRA leader who has been named as the managing director of SSS, in 2007.

Given the Cab investigation, the granting of a security licence to Noonan in 2008 sparked controversy in political circles.

Flanagan, who had been outspoken on the matter, raised the wider subject of the PSA's operations in the Dáil last Thursday.

"There are people with serious criminal records working in the security industry," he said.

"The response from the minister [for justice] was that the authority is entirely independent and it's nothing to do with him. But I feel it's now time it's subject to a review."