A rapist who made a hoax bomb threat from his prison cell to the home of the Minister for Justice has been sentenced to two years in prison.
The sentence will mean an additional two years in custody for 54-year-old Michael Murray who previously had an expected release date of 2036.
Murray has 40 previous convictions including rape, sexual assault, harassment, abduction of a child, false imprisonment, threats to kill, burglary and theft.
He is serving a 19-year sentence for rape which is due to expire in May and be followed by a consecutive sentence of 16 years for harassment and making death threats.
He was convicted of the latest offence after a trial earlier this month. He had denied the charge.
Murray, formerly of Seafield Road, Killiney, Dublin, was found guilty of knowingly making a false report giving rise to an apprehension for the safety of someone else while he was imprisoned in the Midlands Prison, Portlaoise in March 2021.
The trial heard that on 7 March 2021 a call was made to the Samaritans by an anonymous male asking if they could take a message.
The caller then said it was the INLA and that explosives had been planted at the home of the Minister for Justice and her family. The caller also gave a password of 'Red October' and said it was do with a court case happening in Dublin the following day.
Gardaí went to the home of Minister for Justice Helen McEntee but found no evidence of any explosives.
The call was traced back to Murray's cell within the Midlands prison. He was the sole occupant of the cell at the time.
Murray was arrested and questioned. He admitted making a call to the Samaritans but denied making the threat.
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When interviewed, Murray accepted that he had previously been aligned with the INLA and that he had a "gripe" with Fine Gael and the Minister for Justice.
On 9 August 2021, Murray requested a meeting with gardaí where he said he admitted making the call and that he did so out of frustration.
Giving evidence during the trial, Murray maintained that these admissions concerned a later call to the Samaritans and not the bomb threat.
No victim impact statement was handed in to the court.
Defence counsel Garret Baker told a sentence hearing last Friday that his client "respectfully disagrees" with the verdict of the jury and instructed him not to offer mitigation on his behalf.
Murray told the judge: "I absolutely reject the verdict of the jury."
He said he also maintains his innocence for his prior conviction for rape.
In 2013, Murray was convicted of abducting a mother and her four-year-old son and repeatedly raping the woman for hours. He received a sentence of 19 years' imprisonment for this.
He was then sentenced to 16 further years in prison for a campaign of harassment and death threats directed at his victim and the prosecuting lawyers in that trial - with the judge calling his actions an "unprecedented and deliberate" abuse of process.
During his sentence hearing for those charges, he threw a bible at the judge. That judge described his actions as "a fundamental attack on our system of justice".
Before sentence, defence counsel Garret Baker said he had received fresh instructions from his client this morning requesting the judge to "consider at this late stage to declare a mistrial".
He said Michael Murray was challenging the phone evidence in the case.
Judge Ryan said she had no jurisdiction to do that and could not "go behind" the jury's verdict.
She also said Mr Murray had already indicated what he was going to do after today and said she would proceed to sentence.
It is expected Murray will appeal his conviction.
