A consignment of 20 handguns with ammunition was found by Customs officers at Dublin Port yesterday. Two men were being questioned last night by gardai trying to establish whether they were destined for criminal gangs or a paramilitary organisation.
Initial indications were that the guns were to be transported to Northern Ireland.
The guns were found during a search of a cargo container which had arrived by ship into the port. They are understood to have originated in the Netherlands.
The Customs officers who found the consignment alerted the Garda, and armed detectives went to the scene where they arrested two men and took them to Fitzgibbon Street Garda station.
The two were held under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, which allows detention without charge for 48 hours.
Customs said the search which revealed the guns was the result of "routine Customs intelligence work". Yesterday Garda Headquarters said the source and destination of the weapons were not yet known. Such a consignment would normally be far beyond the needs of criminal gangs, who smuggle weapons singly or in small quantities.
It is understood that the two men in custody are from Northern Ireland, and that a truck was on standby to move the weapons from Dublin to Northern Ireland.
However, the Garda would not say whether it believed the operation was arranged by republican or loyalist paramilitaries.
The most recent similar find was of a consignment linked to the INLA. In 1995, gardai intercepted an operation in which 20 9mm handguns, along with four automatic rifles and two sub-machineguns were being brought through Balbriggan, Co Dublin.
Two men later received five year sentences. Among those charged in connection with the shipment was Hugh Torney, the INLA faction leader who was freed on bail by the High Court, failed to appear in court for the trial, and was shot dead in Northern Ireland last year.
Last Saturday the IRA announced "a complete cessation of military operations" from midday on Sunday, and the "unequivocal restoration of the ceasefire of August 1994".
The fine follows the release from custody on Thursday of three men believed by gardai to have been planning a bank raid in Dublin for the IRA. A file has been sent by gardai to the Director of Public Prosecutions on the three, who were arrested on Tuesday. The RUC yesterday discovered eight home-made grenades during a search in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone. The devices, known as coffee jar bombs, were found after a three day search at Tirnaskea Road, Pomeroy. The bombs are of a type only manufactured by the IRA.