CASH seized from a dormant bank account earlier this year was protection money paid to the IRA on behalf of a British food company following the kidnapping of Don Tidey, one of its executives.

Almost €6m in IRA funds, which had been frozen in a bank account for more than 20 years, was paid into the public coffers in March. A sum of IR£1.7m was initially sequestered by a judge in February 1985 after gardai were tipped off that it had been paid to the IRA on the orders of Associated British Foods (ABF) to ensure that none of its executives was kidnapped again.

ABF is said to have entered into negotiations with the IRA after it kidnapped Tidey, a Dublin-based executive, at gunpoint in November 1983. He was held hostage for 23 days until he was rescued by gardai following a shootout in woodland close to Ballinamore in Co Leitrim.

Gary Sheehan, a 20-year-old trainee garda, and Patrick Kelly, 35, an army private and father of four, were murdered during the rescue. Tidey was unharmed.

The Special Criminal Court last week ordered the acquittal of Brendan “Bik” McFarlane, 56, a convicted IRA killer, on charges of kidnapping Tidey. The non-jury court ruled that admissions he supposedly made to gardai were inadmissible.

Tidey was taken at gunpoint from outside his home at Stocking Lane in Rathfarnham in November 1983 as he set off with his 13-year-old daughter for school. Terrorists later demanded a ransom of IR£5m (€6.35m).

According to reliable garda sources, ABF decided to pay the IRA ¤2.2m through Control Risks, a London-based security firm. The food company had been told the IRA was planning to kidnap another of its executives, or would attempt to seize Tidey again. The company, which owned the Quinnsworth supermarket chain, decided to cut a deal with the IRA rather than take the risk.

Garry Weston, ABF's then chairman, also feared that his life and his family's safety would remain under threat if the company did not meet the IRA's demands. His brother, Galen, was the subject of an IRA kidnap attempt in 1983. A gang of terrorists surrounded his Wicklow home, but gardai had already tipped off the businessman and he was in London. Galen Weston and his wife, model Hilary Frayne, moved to Canada shortly afterwards.

Ben Dunne, then head of Dunnes Stores, was also kidnapped by the IRA in the 1980s and a ransom is believed to have been paid. Terrorists also seized and ransomed a number of other business people, including Peter Sims and the wife of businessman Albert Folens.

ABF is believed to have paid the protection money into a Swiss bank account controlled by the IRA, and it was later transferred to a branch of the Bank of Ireland in Navan, Co Meath.

Once it was tracked down by MI5 and garda special branch, the Irish government was alerted and rushed legislation through the Oireachtas to freeze the funds. It said the money had been raised by the IRA through “extortion under the threat of kidnap and murder”.

Although ABF denied it had caved into the IRA's demands, the company's payment infuriated Margaret Thatcher's government. “MI5 and Thatcher were of the view that if the IRA managed to get its hands on such a large amount of money, it would have encouraged them to organise more kidnappings,” said one retired garda.

“Thatcher reckoned the money would have kept the IRA in business for years, which was an accurate assessment. It had shown the IRA that kidnappings, or the threat of them, could generate substantial amounts.”

The frozen money was later claimed by two businessmen, Alan Clancy and Dave McCartney, who took a High Court action to secure it. Clancy, who owned a chain of public houses in New York and Ireland, claimed the cash was for a pork-manufacturing business.

Clancy was a republican sympathiser and businessman from Louth who had emigrated to America. Garda special branch had identified him as being friendly with senior IRA figures from Co Meath, while McCartney was known to have republican leanings. The High Court dismissed their claim in 1988.

Clancy and McCartney later appealed the decision to the Supreme Court but never sought a hearing date. The money, which was earning interest, lay for more than two decades until lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) sought its forfeiture in March.

Justice Kevin Feeney directed that the money be paid to the Department of Justice “for the benefit of central funds”. It had more than doubled by the time it was confiscated.

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