A COCAINE addict who brought a pipe bomb from Dublin to Athlone and exchanged it for a rifle with a silencer has been jailed for six years, with the final two suspended.
Glen Walsh (27), Bawnogue, Clondalkin, Dublin, had been told to bring the pipe bomb as far as Athlone for a Galway order and to bring the rifle back to drug dealers in Dublin to help pay off €500 of a €6,000 drugs debt.
He pleaded guilty yesterday to having the pipe bomb in Athlone on February 27th last and to having a .22 Remington Speedmaster rifle with a telescopic sight and silencer at a filling station on the Athlone Road, Moate, Co Westmeath, on the same date.
A co-accused, fellow Dubliner Mark Phelan (24), of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to similar charges and received a similar sentence in November.
Det Sgt Kevin Gately told the court yesterday that gardaí had both men under surveillance and had followed Walsh from Dublin and watched as he met Phelan, who had travelled from Galway.
Gardaí got a shock later that day when the pipe bomb was discovered in Phelan’s underpants during a search at Galway Garda station. The building had to be evacuated and the Army bomb disposal team came from Athlone to defuse the device, which was “live and viable”.
Walsh had a €700 a week cocaine habit to feed and had debts of €6,000 owing to his dealers, which his parents have since paid.
Judge Raymond Groarke said a lengthy sentence had to be imposed to show people that taking drugs would lead to imprisonment.