A 35-year-old Co Armagh man has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court for unlawful possession of firearms.
Joseph Magee, with an address at Tom Kelly Road, Charlemont Street, Dublin 2, pleaded guilty to possession of three double-barrel sawn-off shotguns and one single-barrel sawn-off shotgun at Tom Kelly Road on July 4th 2000.
The court heard that the accused, a builder's labourer, had been working on the building adjacent to the Special Criminal Court around the time of his arrest.
Armed detectives from the Special Detective Unit and Kevin Street Garda Station discovered the firearms during a search of a flat where he lived with his partner and two children, Det Sgt Walter Kilcullen of Kevin Street told the court.
Detectives had to force open the door and they found the weapons partially concealed under the stairs. The accused had been in the process of dismantling the shotguns and wrapping them.
Five weeks later, on August 9th, the accused made a statement in Kevin Street Garda Station admitting he took possession of the shotguns for safekeeping.
He said a person had delivered them to the flat in the early hours of the morning of July 4th, but he refused to identify that person. Three of the guns had been stolen in 1999 in Monaghan, Dundalk and Wexford.
Magee has 14 previous convictions in Northern Ireland, two of which -in 1983 and 1987 - were for unlawful possession of firearms, for which he served sentences of over eight years.
Those convictions "appeared to be subversive in nature," presiding judge Mr Justice Robert Barr noted yesterday.