Gardaí to probe source of funds for far-right National Party's gold

The leader of the National Party, Justin Barrett, went public on social media on Tuesday alleging that a “considerable quantity of gold” had been removed from the party’s safe vault in Dublin and had gone missing. 

Gardaí are trying to determine the identity of those who funded the €400,000 worth of gold bullion that is at the centre of a dispute inside a small far-right political party.

In a case that various security sources describe as “bizarre”, detectives are investigating who owns the gold bars—which were stashed into a vault of The National Party—and whether or not the gold was paid for by legitimate income.

If the garda investigation determines the source of the money comes from a legitimate source, then their investigation ends.

The matter could be of interest to the Revenue Commissioners which may want to establish whether the wealth was declared and whether relevant taxes, such as capital gains tax, were paid on it or not.

The leader of the National Party, Justin Barrett, went public on social media on Tuesday alleging that a “considerable quantity of gold” had been removed from the party’s safe vault in Dublin and had gone missing.

He implicated two named, senior party members and said he had made a complaint to gardaí. Mr Barrett said the gold “formed the main part of the party’s reserves in case of a mishap in general or more particularly a collapse in the value of fiat currency [State issued currency}.” 

He said the party’s reserves were “gathered by the sacrifice of party members and supporters, over these many years”. Gardaí have established that the gold was moved out of the safe in the building to another location in the same building.

It is understood the original complaint cited a much lower valuation than the valuation gardaí put on the gold. The garda investigation is centred on legitimate ownership of the gold and who has legitimate access to it.

Gardaí will then examine how the money was acquired to purchase the gold.

“If it was the result of donations, where are the declarations?" the source said. “There could be a wealthy donor behind it and, if so, we need to identify that person and establish the source of income. It could be legitimate and, if so, there is no criminality.” 

But if the source of income cannot be established or if investigators remain suspicious, they could refer it to the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Garda Security & Intelligence are also likely to be interested in the case, not least given the sheer scale of the reserves held by a far-right group but, moreover, where the monies for it came from.

In a statement, Revenue said it was "legally precluded" from discussing tax affairs of any individual, business or entity.