Arms Crisis - Revelation and Trial

Revelation and Trial

By late April 1970, the Garda Síochána Special Branch were aware of the plot and had passed the information up to Jack Lynch. However, Lynch took no action until the leader of the opposition, Liam Cosgrave became aware of the smuggling scheme and pressed the Taoiseach to take action. Haughey and Blaney were sacked by Lynch on May 6 when they refused to resign. Kevin Boland, the Minister for Social Welfare resigned from the government in protest at the sackings as he was adamant (as were the accused) that Jack Lynch and most of the Cabinet, in particular Jim Gibbons then Minister for defence, knew about the plan to import arms all along. The Minister for Justice, Micheál Ó Móráin who was in hospital at the time was asked to resign on May 4. He later claimed that he had in fact informed Lynch of the individuals involved.

On 28 May 1970, Haughey and Blaney went on trial in Dublin, together with an Irish Army intelligence officer, Captain James Kelly, a Belfast republican leader named John Kelly and Belgian businessman and former Nazi Albert Luykx, who had allegedly agreed to use his contacts to acquire the weapons. All charges against Blaney were dropped in the District Court July 2, 1970 and as a result he was not tried, before the main trial got underway under Justice Aindrias O'Caoimh. The trial collapsed a week later after allegations of bias. Following a second trial the other four defendants were cleared on October 23.

At the trial there was a direct contradiction of evidence regarding the sanctioning of the imports between Haughey and the chief prosecutorial witness, Jim Gibbons who was Minister for Defence at the time of the attempted imports. Haughey admitted arranging customs clearance for the shipment, but claimed in his defense that he did not know it consisted of weapons. This directly contradicted the evidence of Jim Gibbons and Peter Berry that Haughey was fully aware of all the details of the conspiracy. It also contradicted the stories of his co-defendants, who admitted that they had tried to import weapons, but maintained that the shipment had been legally authorised by the government. During the trial the judge remarked that either Haughey or Gibbons had to be committing perjury.

The evidence during the trial did show that, although suspected by some, the government was not funding the Provisional IRA.