Date set for IRA money laundering trial

The Special Criminal Court has fixed a date next month for the trial of a Cork chef arrested last year as part of a garda investigation into IRA money laundering.

Father-of-two Don Bullman (aged 31) of Fernwood Crescent, Leghanamore, Wilton, Co Cork was charged in February last year with membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on February 16, 2005.

Today Bullman’s counsel Mr Conor Devally SC applied to the court to fix January 23 as the date for his trial.

Prosecuting counsel Mr George Birmingham SC said that date was acceptable to the State.

Last year during a bail hearing, Detective Superintendent Diarmuid O' Sullivan of the Special Detective Unit said that gardaí had found a bag containing a Daz box containing more than €94,000 wrapped in three individual wrappings of €30,000 each when Bullman was arrested at Heuston Station in Dublin in a northern registered jeep.

The Detective Superintendent said during that hearing that Bullman was "a central individual" to the activities of the IRA prior to February 16, 2005 and that activity was "a money laundering operation for the IRA, in which he is central".

Bullman was remanded on continuing bail until his trial on January 23.