Gardaí: Seized weapons were stolen from legal owners
The arms find was made when a special Garda task force searched wasteground in the Palmerstown area of west Dublin.
The Garda team uncovered five shotguns and two rifles as well as a quantity of ammunition.
The operation was conducted by the south central task force, which is based at Pearse Street Garda Station in the city centre, with the assistance of the district detective unit in Clondalkin, west Dublin.
The search was conducted on Monday night.
The area was sealed off for forensic examination which continued yesterday.
Gardaí suspect that the weapons were legally owned and had been stolen at some stage.
They are trying to trace who owned the firearms.
Officers don’t believe they are from the haul of 30 firearms stolen last Saturday from a rural firearms dealer in south Tipperary.
In that incident, four men, at least one armed, stole the firearms from the home of dealer Thomas Keevan at Cregg, close to Carrick-on-Suir.
Gardaí suspect that the haul was destined for a criminal gang in Limerick.
Gardaí have sent the seven weapons retrieved on Monday night to the Garda Technical Bureau for examination.
The ballistics section will determine whether or not the weapons had been used in any crime, while the forensic section will check for DNA or fingerprint evidence. The specialist unit will also check its database on stolen weapons to see where the seven guns were taken from.
Last December the Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said 1,263 legally-held firearms had been stolen since 2005 and that 373 had been recovered.
