The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed an appeal by two Sinn Féin members against their convictions for IRA membership.
Niall Binéad (36), Faughart Road, Crumlin, and Kenneth Donohoe (27), Mountain View, Tallaght, both Dublin, were each jailed for four years by the Special Criminal Court in 2004 after they were convicted of membership of an unlawful organisation.
The trial was told gardaí found a list of TDs, including three former ministers for justice, at Binéad's home. He is a former secretary of a south Dublin Sinn Féin cumann.
At the three-judge appeal court yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding , dismissed the appeals. Binéad remains in custody while Donohoe, who was on bail pending the appeal outcome, is to present himself at Portlaoise prison today to serve his sentence.
At their trial, Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan said the belief of a Garda chief superintendent that they were IRA members was taken into account along with their failure to answer material questions when interviewed about documents found at their homes and in the context of suspicious activity at Corke Abbey, Bray, Co Wicklow, in October 2002.
The men were arrested after gardaí arrested five others following suspicious activity around three vehicles in Corke Abbey.
Inside a transit van, gardaí found four men, a sledgehammer, pickaxe handles, bags of ties, radios, a balaclava, rubber gloves and a yellow fluorescent jacket with the words "Garda" on it.
In a Nissan car with false number plates, they found a flashing beacon, a Long Kesh baseball cap, a stun gun, a canister of CS gas and a roll of black tape. Binéad's thumbprint was found on the roll of black tape, while another car involved in the incident at Bray belonged to a woman who was Donohoe's partner.
The three judges at the Special Criminal Court had examined secret Garda files which were not seen by either the prosecution or defence legal teams.
Binéad appealed on the grounds that the Special Criminal Court had wrongly examined confidential information to establish the reliability of the chief superintendent's opinion evidence.
Donohoe argued that the confidential information had not been seen by the defence in breach of the Article 38 of the Constitution and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
He had also appealed on the absence of corroborative evidence as well as inferences drawn by the Special Criminal Court having regard to his right to silence.
Ms Justice Macken said yesterday the Special Criminal Court was correct in concluding that both men were associated with the events at Corke Abbey. She also held that there was no reason to conclude that anything found in the material examined by the Special Criminal Court was influential on the court's judgment.
She said the evidence established clearly that there was "a complete and utter failure" on the part of both men to answer any question during interview, thus inferences were correctly and validly drawn, she said.