A National Museum employee has told a court he wants to reapply for bail \u201cat the earliest chance\u201d, having already been denied release when he was charged with possession of an explosive device over the discovery of a bomb in a car in Co Monaghan last week.<\/p>\n
The non-jury Special Criminal Court remanded the accused man, Simon O\u2019Donovan, in custody on Monday, having heard he remains unrepresented by a solicitor. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Donovan (44), with an address at Sperrin Road in Dublin 12, is charged that on July 22nd at St Laurence\u2019s Road, Chapelizod, Dublin 10, he did knowingly have in his possession an explosive substance, to wit – an improvised device – under such circumstances as to give rise to a reasonable suspicion that he had not got it in his possession for a lawful object.<\/p>\n
When the case was mentioned before Judge Patrick McGrath at the Special Criminal Court on Monday, State solicitor Ciara Vibien said she was unsure if the accused man was legally represented but that she was seeking a date for service of the book of evidence.<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, defence solicitor Darragh Mackin, of Belfast-based firm Phoenix Law, informed the court O\u2019Donovan had asked him to act for him, but he could not accept instructions due to the strike by criminal legal aid lawyers. <\/p>\n
Mackin said he was attending that evening\u2019s sitting out of courtesy to the court. When McGrath inquired of the accused man on Monday whether he was represented, O\u2019Donovan asked: \u201cIs the strike still on for solicitors?\u201d The presiding judge said there had been solicitors present in court representing other defendants.<\/p>\n
Vibien told the court she had not received any correspondence from anyone. <\/p>\n
\u201cHave you been in touch with your solicitor?\u201d asked the judge, to which O\u2019Donovan replied: \u201cNot since the last date I appeared here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s surprising,\u201d said McGrath. The judge said he intended to remand the accused in custody until October 5th, when he would be served with the book of evidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be in your interest to have a solicitor engaged with this matter,\u201d he said to the accused.<\/p>\n
Summer holiday<\/p>\n
Vibien told the three judges that the Special Criminal Court would not be sitting again until October due to the summer holiday and that the accused might wish to apply for bail again, given he had no legal representation on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
McGrath told the defendant that, normally, an accused can only apply for bail a second time due to a change of circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t tie the hands of any other judge, but if you are represented another judge may consider that a change of circumstances,\u201d McGrath said.<\/p>\n
Vibien said the Special Criminal Court would have jurisdiction to hear a bail application if the matter came before it.<\/p>\n
The judge told the accused there was no difficulty if he wished to make a further application to the Special Criminal Court or the High Court.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to seek bail at the earliest chance,\u201d said O\u2019Donovan.<\/p>\n
McGrath told him it would clearly be in his interests to be legally represented if he wished to progress a further bail application, \u201cgiven the nature of the objections\u201d garda\u00ed had to bail at the weekend.<\/p>\n
The judge remanded the accused in custody until October 5th.<\/p>\n
At a late-night bail application on Saturday, the High Court heard O\u2019Donovan is alleged to have stored the explosive device in the confines of the National Museum at Collins\u2019 Barracks, Dublin, where he worked.<\/p>\n
A detective sergeant said if the device had detonated, it would have caused catastrophic damage. Det Sgt Shane Noone said the accused had been captured on CCTV leaving his place of employment in the museum on July 22nd carrying a distinctive black holdall bag. He entered the War Memorial Gardens, where he is alleged to have met Isobella Perrie Sullivan at 1.53pm.<\/p>\n
The witness said the accused was observed showing Perrie Sullivan the contents of the bag before she took possession of it.<\/p>\n
He said Perrie Sullivan then travelled from Dublin to Carrickmacross, where a distinctive black holdall bag was discovered in the rear of a vehicle containing an explosive device; 394g of military grade Semtex, a timer switch and a viable detonator.<\/p>\n
Det Sgt Shane Noone said his belief was that, if O\u2019Donovan were released on bail, he would continue to engage in IRA operational activity and carry out the transportation of weapons, personnel and communications. Should he be granted bail, the detective said O\u2019Donovan may interfere with the investigative process by destroying evidence and interfering with witnesses, particularly the staff at Collins\u2019 Barracks.<\/p>\n
On Friday evening, Perrie Sullivan (25), a law student with an address at Abbeylands Park in Clane, Co Kildare, was charged with possession of explosives at a special sitting of Trim District Court in connection with the same investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A National Museum employee has told a court he wants to reapply for bail \u201cat the earliest chance\u201d,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36527,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-570610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts-service","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}