A security company worker who gave information about cash deliveries to a criminal gang has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Darryl Caffrey from Cherry Park in Rivervalley in Swords was arrested at the scene of a failed attempt to rob more than €1m from a cash in transit van in Celbridge in November 2007.
He is the first person to be convicted of the new offence of participating in organised crime.
The 34-year-old said he did it because he was threatened and also because he was promised 10% of the proceeds of the raid.
Caffrey worked for Chubb Ireland and passed on information about the routes and times of cash deliveries, details of when he would be in a van, and the best place for a robbery.
He said he had money problems and a criminal gang contacted him in February 2007 and told him to pick up a phone in a park.
They threatened him if he did not help but also promised him a 10% share which Caffrey did not really believe he would ever get.
However, he texted them delivery times and van registration numbers at least nine times, received up to 20 calls and met gang members several times over the nine-month period.
He was finally caught in November 2007 at the scene when gardaí foiled the attempted robbery and he immediately admitted what he had done.
Judge Katherine Delahunt said Caffrey came from a decent respectable family and had not come to Garda attention before.
His information was critical to the planning of the robbery, she said, even though he was not privy to the gang's wider plans.
She said the maximum sentence for this new offence was five years so she sentenced him to three years in prison.
