Four men, believed to be members of a Provisional IRA punishment squad, are being questioned by Garda detectives after they were arrested in a car in north-east Cork. Three loaded pistols, balaclavas and a baseball bat were found in the car.
According to Garda sources, it is believed the four were on their way to carry out an attack on someone in north-east Cork.
The four men are all from Cork. One man, in his 40s, served a prison sentence in the 1980s in relation to an arms offence. The three others are in their 20s and have no serious criminal convictions. The arrests took place at Mitchelstown, Co Cork, on Monday evening at a routine uniformed Garda traffic checkpoint.
As a local garda was speaking to the driver of the car - a blue Escort with false number plates which had been stolen earlier in Waterford - he noticed what appeared to be a handgun jutting out from under a seat on the passenger side.
The garda continued talking to the men in the car while signalling to a colleague to call for back-up. Armed detectives arrived at the checkpoint within minutes and the four men were arrested.
The car had been stopped at Cahir Hill, Mitchelstown, and none of the four men resisted arrest. They were arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and taken to Garda stations at Mallow, Fermoy, Midleton and Mayfield in Cork city.
They can be held for three days for questioning under the Act before being brought to court or released.
The man in his 40s has an address in the Cork Harbour area. Two of the other men are from east Cork and the third has an address in Cork city.
It is understood that three of them were previously known to gardai and have had connections with the Provisional IRA.
Gardai in Co Cork said yesterday it was unclear why the men were travelling back to the city on the main Dublin-Cork road or why they had guns with live ammunition. The guns were taken yesterday to Garda headquarters in Dublin for examination.
Gardai said that as well as the automatic pistol found under the seat of the car, two others were discovered in the jackets of two of the men. One contained six bullets.
"It is too early to say why they were travelling towards Cork or what their intentions were, but we are delighted the checkpoint proved so effective and we have obviously disrupted their mission, whatever it was," a Garda source said.
A second stolen car, an Opel Kadett with false Northern Ireland number plates, was also being examined by gardai in Mitchelstown yesterday.
The car was found abandoned at Shanballymore, about eight miles from the town. However, gardai said it was unlikely the two incidents were connected.
The IRA has been involved in many "punishment beatings" in Northern Ireland, despite being on ceasefire.
There have been fewer such attacks in the Republic but the organisation was responsible for shooting dead two drug dealers in Dublin and attempting to murder a third last year.
A statement purporting to be from the Continuity IRA has denied any involvement in the bomb found in Limerick last Friday which was made safe by an Army bomb disposal team. The statement, from the Limerick brigade, was recorded on a local radio station, Limerick 95 FM, early yesterday. The caller said it was signed P O'Rourke.
It called on people using the organisation's name "to enhance crime in the city to desist or face military action. Our war is in Northern Ireland and it is not a sordid drugs war being played out on the streets of Limerick," the statement added.