Gardaí investigating money laundering by republican paramilitaries recovered a further £437,000 (€634,000) yesterday. Some £250,000 was seized when CAB officers visited a man in his 20s in the Tullamore area of Co Offaly, while a middle-aged man in Dublin handed over a further £67,000 when he was visited by CAB detectives write Barry Roche and Mark Hennessy.
CAB also seized £120,000 from two businessmen in Munster - almost £100,000 when they visited a businessman in the Millstreet area of north Cork, and a further £20,000 in a follow-up inquiry with a businessman near Rathmore in east Kerry. They money will be sent for forensic and other technical examinations.
Yesterday's operations in Munster followed an investigation into the activities of a financial adviser from Farran in mid-Cork, and the discovery of some £2.3 million in the basement of his home last Thursday.
The cash discoveries will top the agenda of talks today in Belfast between the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, and the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Mr Paul Murphy. The meeting will be attended by the Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy, and the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Mr Hugh Orde.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Minister for Defence, Mr O'Dea, said they expected confirmation in coming days that some of the money seized in Cork came from the Northern Bank raid.
However, the PSNI remains cautious, stressing it may not be possible to trace used notes back to the bank unless original wrappings were still in place. Garda sources are also cautious about linking cash recovered in the Republic over the last five days with the money stolen in the raid.
Over the weekend, CAB officers raided an accountancy firm in an east Cork town and a solicitors' office in Cork city on foot of the seizure of documentation in the Ballincollig offices of the Farren-based financial adviser.
"We have over 20 people that we want to visit - every time somebody's name turns up on a document or a computer, they have to be checked out," said one Garda source.
Gardaí in Cork city yesterday released without charge a 47-year-old man they had arrested in Passage West on Friday afternoon after receiving a report that burnt Northern Ireland bank notes were found near his home in the south Cork town.
Gardaí believe he was asked to mind the money by a senior figure in the Provisional IRA in Cork after police began trying to recover money which the paramilitary group was trying to launder.
A file will now be prepared on the matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Meanwhile, in an interview on Today FM yesterday, Mr McDowell claimed Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams, the party's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, and Kerry South TD Mr Martin Ferris were members of the IRA's army council.
Mr McGuinness replied on RTÉ: "I was a member of the IRA many many years ago, and I outlined all of that to the Bloody Sunday tribunal. I am not a member of the IRA, I am not a member of the IRA army council. I am one of the leaders of Sinn Féin."
Asked about Mr Adams and Mr Ferris, he said: "They're not members of the IRA army council."
He accused Mr McDowell of being hostile to the peace process. "People like Michael McDowell have decided that a window of opportunity exists to attack our party, to criminalise our party in the best tradition of Margaret Thatcher."
Speaking in Navan, the Taoiseach said: "As I have said many times, I don't know who is on the army council. I was never at one of the meetings."