Continuity IRA left reeling over high-level informer

Dissident threat - Continuity IRA left reeling over high-level informer

16 October 2010
The Irish News
Barry McCaffrey

The Continuity IRA has been left reeling after a leading member was taken into Garda protective custody after it emerged that he was a high-level informer.

Garda Special Branch officers are understood to have brought the Co Donegal man into a protection scheme after the CIRA suspected him of tipping off the security forces about plans to kill a Catholic police recruit in Co Fermanagh last November.

Dissident chiefs are believed to have launched a hunt for an informer within their ranks after two of its most senior members were arrested and later charged in the well-planned security force ambush. Security sources confirmed that the Ballyshannon man and his family are in protective custody. There is growing speculation that the move may be linked to the discovery of a number of arms dumps in the Republic in recent weeks.

It is understood that the 38-year-old first agreed to begin working for Garda Special Branch while he was awaiting trial on serious fraud charges last year.  When he appeared in court he admitted charges of defrauding a finance company over hire purchase agreements.  However, the case was unexpectedly adjourned to allow him to repay the money.

Dissident sources last night said that the man came under suspicion shortly after a security force ambush in Garrison last year.

Irish army reserve soldier Gerard James McManus, from Fern Hill in Letterkenny, was arrested hiding in a shed in the village after a gun battle with undercover police who had been hiding in the home of the Catholic police trainee.  During questioning Mr McManus said he had only opened fire after being shot at by police.  He said that he had aimed his gun away from police and had not intended to kill.

Kevin Barry Nolan (32) from Main Street, Blacklion in Co Cavan, was arrested after undercover police rammed a getaway car he was driving.  The 32-year-old had previously stood as an independent republican candidate in council elections in Co Fermanagh in 2005.

In March it emerged that Tyrone man Martin Kelly had been taken into protective custody in the Republic and had agreed to co-operate with detectives investigating the dissident murder of Strabane man Andrew Burns in 2008.

In November 2007 Letterkenny man Liam McGinley was taken into protective custody after passing on information to gardai about the Real IRA murder of Sinn Fein administrator turned MI5 agent Denis Donaldson.

McGinley is reported to have identified the killers to gardai and to have passed on information which led to the recovery of a sledgehammer that the Real IRA gang had used to break down the door of Mr Donaldson's cottage in Co Donegal in April 2006 before killing him.

Mr McGinley is understood to have agreed to cooperate after having been abducted and shot by the Real IRA in November 2007.