Gardai have uncovered another cache of weapons close to the spot where an underground firing range was discovered last week.
A rocket launcher of a kind not seen before in this State, detonators and ammunition were found during continuing searches in the Gormanstown area of Co Meath yesterday.
The Garda officer in charge of the searches said the material was believed to belong to the dissident republican group calling itself the "Real IRA".
Chief Supt Michael Finnegan, head of the Meath/Louth Garda division, said his team was satisfied that there was a direct link between the latest discovery and the finds made last week.
Yesterday's search was one of a series taking place following the discovery of the underground hide last week.
The items were found in sections of plastic piping which had been closed and then concealed amongst bales of hay in a covered hayshed.
The shed was in a farmyard backing on to the Stamullen road and the cache is not thought to have been there for long.
Gardai called in an Army bomb disposal specialist to examine three small packets of what they suspected to be power packs.
They later identified the material as power packs and detonators of a type never seen in arms finds on either side of the Border.
They had no markings to indicate where they may have originated.
This latest batch of equipment had been hidden in the bales of hay in a farmyard shed. Detectives believe the rocket-launcher is a Russian RPG 18 Mukha light anti-armour shoulder-held device.
There were about 40 electric detonators and a number of other items which were being examined by Army explosives experts.
Ballistics and fingerprinting officers from the Garda Forensic Science Unit in Dublin were also at the scene.
The launcher has Russian markings and is brand new and unused.
It is of a type that comes as a single unit and is loaded and ready for use. Once fired it would be discarded.
A Garda sergeant with the ballistics unit confirmed to the media that none of these items had been previously found in arsenals of the Provisional IRA.
Also recovered were 36 electrical detonators.
"This is very significant, it is the first time we have seen this plastic explosive in Ireland, if it is that," one source said.
The rocket launcher is capable of destroying an armour-plated vehicle and would retail at approximately £500 in Eastern Europe.
"Based on today's find and last Wednesday night's, we are happy that these items were in the possession of dissident republicans and we must accept they have possession of weaponry," said Chief Supt Finnegan, who is leading the operation against dissidents in the region.
Although gardai were pleased with the seizure, they also privately confirmed that it was a very worrying development that items which had never been seen before in this State had surfaced.
The searches and continuing investigation into the activities of the "Real IRA" and other dissident republican groups are to continue.