Gardaí found documents relating to the movements of a number of TDs in a briefcase taken from the home of a Dublin man accused of IRA membership, the Special Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Prosecuting counsel Mr George Birmingham SC told the court the documents found in the briefcase at the home of Mr Niall Binead "related to the activities and movements of a number of elected representatives, members of Dáil Éireann from different political parties".
He said gardaí also found other documents relating to movements and activities of people who might be suspected of involvement in crime or anti-social activity such as drugs.
Mr Binead (35), also known as Niall Bennett, Faughart Road, Crumlin, and Mr Kenneth Donohue (26), Sundale Avenue, Mountain View, Tallaght, have pleaded not guilty to membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA, on October 10th, 2002.
Mr Birmingham told the court the evidence against the two men would consist of the belief of Det Chief Supt Phil Kelly, head of the Special Detective Unit, and that belief would be supported by other evidence. He said the court would hear that off-duty Det Garda Michael Masterson, who lives in Bray, noticed a number of men acting suspiciously around three vehicles in the Cork Abbey area of Bray on the night of October 10th, 2002.
He contacted Shankill Garda station and gardaí who arrived on the scene went to a transit van. Inside the van they found four men as well as a sledgehammer, a pickaxe handle, radios and a black balaclava.
In a Nissan Almera car with false number plates they found a blue flashing beacon, a Long Kesh baseball cap, a stun gun, a canister of CS gas and a roll of masking tape.
The transit van was traced to its owner, who is a Sinn Féin member and who had made it available for election purposes on the night in question. Neither of the two accused was arrested at the scene of the incident in Bray.