Expert assessment of the contents of the IRA bomb factory discovered in a Co Cavan farmhouse earlier this month indicates that before the ceasefire, the IRA had perfected radio-controlled equipment which could direct driver-less car or van bombs towards security force checkpoints.
The equipment was designed and built by IRA engineers from commercially produced components.
It has now emerged that the factory found in the attic of the farmhouse near Crosskeys almost two weeks ago was the biggest and most sophisticated IRA bomb-manufacturing facility ever uncovered.
It contained thousands of electronic parts, which Garda sources say were bought from commercial outlets either in Europe or the United States, at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.
Garda surveillance teams are understood to have followed IRA figures to the farmhouse up to and after the July 19th IRA ceasefire. The equipment in the house was ready to be used, but most of it was stored in plastic boxes or bags.
The factory had the capacity to produce timer-power units for more than 400 bombs. The circuit boards for the timer-power units - the mechanisms which detonate bombs at given time spans - were already manufactured and could have been used very quickly, according to the sources.
British army ordnance officers and RUC forensic scientists have been shown the equipment found in the farmhouse.
It is understood the radio-controlled device for driving car or van bombs is the first of its kind, although cruder variations have been found inside Northern Ireland.
The IRA started trying to perfect the device around 1990 when it carried out a series of attacks on Border checkpoints which culminated in a series of "human bomb" attacks in October of that year.
In one attack, the IRA detonated a bomb which had been driven to the Buncrana Road checkpoint outside Derry, killing the driver, Mr Patsy Gillespie, and five British soldiers.
Mr Gillespie's family had been captured and were held hostage by the IRA. Mr Gillespie was told they would be killed if he refused to drive the bomb to the checkpoint. It was at first believed that Mr Gillespie was tied into the driver seat but it emerged later that a crude booby-trap device had been used to detonate the bomb.
Later the IRA forced other men to drive van bombs to checkpoints while attempting to detonate the bombs by radio control. None of these succeeded. This series of attacks using radio-controlled and booby trap devices tailed off after about two years.
It would appear that before the ceasefire the IRA was considering restarting these attacks with the use of this new radio-controlled equipment.
The equipment found in the farmhouse is being examined by Garda and Army experts to determine its exact use. It appears that the equipment will not be displayed for press cameras as was the case when gardai discovered other such weapons factories.