Two Dublin men have been jailed by the Special Criminal Court after they were caught with what the judge described as "a lethal arsenal" of firearms and ammunition in a Dublin business park last year.
Jonathan Harding, 44, of McNeill Court, Sallins, Co Kildare, was sentenced to ten years with one suspended, while 33-year-old James Walsh, from Neilstown Drive in Clondalkin, was sentenced to nine years with one suspended.
They admitted possessing nine revolvers, four pistols, a sub-machine gun, an assault rifle and various ammunition magazines.
The weapons and ammunition were stored in an industrial unit, which was being used as part of an elaborate front purporting to be a legitimate business.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt questioned whether the law as it stands is sufficient to deal with criminality at this scale and said the men were lucky they pleaded guilty or they would have got longer sentences.
Gardaí investigating the Kinahan crime gang had Harding and Walsh under surveillance and followed them to an industrial unit in the Greenogue Business Park on 24 January 2017.
The unit was set up to look like a branch of a legitimate UK logistics company, with lever arch files at reception and forklifts inside, but when gardaí raided it they found what the judge described as "a lethal arsenal" of weapons.
Four of the revolvers found were laid out on cardboard on the floor "primed, armed and ready to be used".
A transit van with a secret compartment with the ammunition was also found parked inside.
Walsh was arrested inside the unit and his DNA was found on plastic cup lids and on two newspapers there.
He was described as the gang's "trusted lieutenant".
Harding, a convicted drug dealer, was arrested at a nearby petrol station. His DNA was found on gloves in the unit.
While the court accepted that neither man was an organiser or a prime mover, Mr Justice Hunt said they were involved in a deadly enterprise.
He said criminal organisations depend on these weapons and on people such as Walsh and Harding.
