Five Dublin men found acting suspiciously in Bray, Co Wicklow, were each jailed for four years by the Special Criminal Court yesterday for IRA membership.
Jailing the men, Mr Justice Diarmuid O' Donovan, presiding, told them: "The mind boggles as to what you were up to. Whatever it was, we are quite sure that it was up to no good and it was associated with your membership of the IRA."
The five men are Thomas Gilson (24), of Bawnlea Ave, Jobstown, Tallaght, Patrick Brennan (40), of Lindisfarne Avenue, Clondalkin, Seán O'Donnell (32), of Castle Drive, Sandymount, John Troy (25), of Donard Avenue and Stephen Birney (31), of Conquerhill Road, Clontarf. They had all denied membership of the IRA on October 11th, 2002.
The judge said that last November two men, Niall Binead and Kenneth Donohoe, were convicted of a similar offence and jailed for four years, and the court did not propose to differentiate between those men and the five accused.
The court jailed each of the men for four years but suspended two months to take into account time already spent in custody.
There was applause from the men's supporters in the packed public gallery after the sentences were handed down and as the men were led from the dock.
Earlier Chief Supt Peter Maguire told the court that all the men were members of the Provisional IRA and were attached to that organisation's Dublin brigade and answerable directly to the leadership.
During the 24-day trial the court heard that the five men were arrested after an off-duty Special Branch detective, Det Garda Michael Masterson, noticed suspicious activity around three vehicles - a Nissan Almera car, a Nissan Micra car and a van.
The court heard that gardaí recovered a large quantity of Sinn Féin posters, including election posters for Sinn Féin TD Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, from the Nissan Almera car in which they also found a stun gun, a CS gas canister, a blue flashing light and a beacon.
Gardaí also found two pick-axe handles, a lump hammer, three portable radios, cable ties, balaclavas and a fake Garda jacket in the van, and four of the men were found seated on the floor of the van. Two of them, Gilson and O'Donnell, were dressed in fake Garda uniforms.
Det Chief Supt Philip Kelly, of the Special Detective Unit, told the court that he believed the men were members of the IRA, and his opinion was based on confidential information gleaned from sources within and outside the Garda Síochána.
Convicting the men, Mr Justice O'Donovan said that the chief superintendent's opinion evidence had not been challenged by the defence. The court was entitled to, and did draw adverse inferences from the failure of each accused to answer questions regarding membership of an illegal organisation, and was satisfied that their silence amounted to corroboration of the belief evidence of Chief Supt Kelly.
The judge added: "However, whatever purpose the accused had for being in each other's company on the evening of October 10th, 2002, and whatever they intended to do with the items which were found in the van in which they were arrested and in the Nissan Almera car with which they were also associated on that evening, the court has no doubt but that they were up to no good by which the court means some criminal activity.
"Certainly, notwithstanding that an election poster bearing the name Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD was also found in the Nissan Almera car, the court is satisfied that whatever the accused had in mind on that evening, it was a far cry from electioneering on behalf of Sinn Féin which was the purpose for which the van in which they were arrested had been lent to the Sinn Féin organisation by its owner."
The judge said that viewed in isolation, the activities they were engaged in at Corke Abbey in Bray could well be related to organised crime as opposed to subversive crime, and similarly the fact that each of the accused had tattoos reflecting republican sympathies did not necessarily indicate that they were members of an illegal organisation.
However, viewed collectively in the context of the chief superintendent's evidence and of the fact that they failed to answer questions during interviews, it seemed to the court that this "points inexorably to membership of an illegal organisation".