Arms seizures by security forces over the past three decades indicated that the IRA was importing arms into this State in significant quantities from 1971 right up to last year. The intercepted shipments include:
1973: The 300-ton MV Claudia was intercepted off Helvick Head, Co Waterford, in March 1973. On board the Naval Service found 250 rifles, 246 bayonets, 243 pistols, 850 magazines, 100 anti-tank mines, 500 grenades, gelignite, TNT, primers, electric fuses and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. These weapons were a gift from Col Gadafy. It was later learned that two identical shipments had reached the IRA.
1977-78: An estimated seven tons of weapons, including an unknown number of RPG7 rocket-launchers, rifles, explosives, handguns and ammunition, reached the IRA from Libya. The route is unknown.
1984: The Fenit, Co Kerry-based trawler, the Marita Ann, was intercepted by the Naval Service near the Skelligs, off the Kerry coast. There were seven tons of arms on board, including a .5 Browning machinegun, 300 rifles and 50,000 rounds of ammunition. These weapons had come from an organised crime gang in Boston.
1985: In August the 65ft fishing boat, the Casamara, delivered the first of three shipments of weapons from Libya, again a present from Col Gadafy. This first 10-ton shipment included 50 boxes containing rifles, pistols and rocket-launchers.
In October the Casamara, skippered by the former Bray Travel director, Adrian Hopkins, delivered another 10 to 14 tons of weapons, including several 12.70 light machineguns.
1986: In April between 14 and 20 tons of weapons, including Semtex and at least two surface-to-air missiles, arrived.
A larger vessel, the Villa, was used to deliver between 80 and 90 tons of weapons, including at least seven RPG rocket-launchers, 10 SAM missiles and a large quantity of Semtex.
A shipment of 17 rifles, two handguns, grenades, 70,000 rounds of ammunition and four drums of the chemical nitrobenzene (used for manufacturing explosives) was discovered in Amsterdam.
1987: In October some 150 tons of weaponry on board the Eksund was intercepted by a French naval fast-patrol vessel looking for drug-traffickers in the Bay of Biscay. The largest shipment ever intercepted, it included 1,000 AK47 rifles, 10 DMZK .5 anti-aircraft machineguns, one million rounds of ammunition and one million mortar shells.
1988: In January, at Five Fingers Strand, Co Donegal, gardai found 100 rifles, 100 lb of Semtex and five medium machineguns in a bunker.
1988: On February 23rd gardai found 12 RPG7 rockets, 640 lb of Semtex and 27,000 rounds of ammunition.
1990: On May 26th gardai found 76 AK47 rifles, 31,000 rounds of ammunition and some Semtex in Limerick.
1992: The FBI intercepted a shipment of 2,900 electric detonators bought by the IRA in Tucson, Arizona. The IRA had already bought a number of .5 Barrett sniper rifles, which were later used to kill nine soldiers and police in south Armagh. An attempt to buy a Stinger surface-to-air missile failed.
1999: An IRA procurement team bought around 200 guns, mostly handguns and sub-machineguns, in Florida. Thirty of the weapons were intercepted as a result of an FBI operation.