THE name of a key figure in the garda’s investigation into IRA money laundering emerged last week, writes Dearbhail McDonald.

John Sheehan, a Cork businessman, has been revealed as the person who surrendered more than £170,000 (€243,000) to police at the height of the probe.

Sheehan, a security operator, is an associate of Ted Cunningham, the financier at the centre of the garda investigation.

He is understood to have told gardai he was given the money to mind by Cunningham, his tenant at the Westpoint Business Park in Ballincollig.

Sheehan, who won millions in lucrative state contracts to protect courthouses and disused army barracks, said the money was being held for legitimate purposes.

He became the latest corporate casualty of the investigation when he was ousted as a non-executive board member of Sheehan Security last month. In 2003, he pocketed €8m when the security firm was sold to Newcourt Group.

The Criminal Assets Bureau has taken up residence in the four-star Silversprings Moran hotel in Cork to continue following the paper trail.

The investigation is still into money laundering, rather than the Northern Bank raid. Among its highlights was the arrest of a suspected Real IRA member who was caught with €78,000 in a box of Daz washing-up powder at Dublin’s Heuston Station.

Although £65,000 was seized in Northern Bank notes at Cunningham’s home, forensic tests have not established that they originated from the heist.

In fact, the only money which has turned up from the bank robbery so far is £50,000 found in the toilets of a Belfast leisure club frequented by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

That has led Sinn Fein to accuse gardai and the government of unfairly targeting republicans. Searches at the homes of some Sinn Fein members, including that of Roisin O’Sullivan, a teenage councillor in Cork whose evening meal was “ruined” by uninvited guests from Special Branch, have prompted a storm of protest from party representatives.

Aengus O Snodaigh, a Sinn Fein TD, suggested in the Dail last week that gardai didn’t get much of a haul when they raided the former Sinn Fein councillor Tom Hanlon’s house during the money laundering operation.

Eight members of the Garda Special Branch were involved in the raid, O Snodaigh said. All they removed were “the councillor’s notes on council meetings and business”.

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