A second man has told the jury in the Nevin trial that Mrs Catherine Nevin asked him to kill her husband.
Mr Gerry Heapes, who was convicted of having a firearm in 1977 and served his time on the IRA wing in Portlaoise Prison, said he met Mrs Nevin after his release in 1985.
The jury also heard lengthy cross-examination of Mr John Jones, a former Sinn Fein member, who alleged Mrs Nevin asked him to get the IRA to murder her husband and make it look like a botched robbery.
They heard that Mr Jones was arrested under in 1981 or 1982 and questioned about his then business partner, Mr Dessie Ellis, who later was convicted on explosives charges.
Mr Jones said he didn't report Mrs Nevin's alleged soliciting to the Garda until "after the fact" because at the time it seemed so "ridiculous" and because he had been harassed by gardai. Mr Jones said a story Mrs Nevin told him about two SAS men was "bizarre". "She told me she was confronted by two SAS men, she struggled with them and they got out a window." Mr MacEntee said his instructions were that Mr Jones had free use of the flat for five weeks. On one occasion, two people passed Mrs Nevin and one of them cut her with broken glass. Mr Jones later told her not to go to the police.
"I've never heard such a load of rubbish in all my life", was Mr Jones's response.
In the Central Criminal Court trial, Mrs Catherine Nevin (48) has pleaded not guilty to murdering Mr Tom Nevin (54), on March 19th, 1996, in their home at Jack White's Inn, near Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow.
She has also pleaded not guilty to soliciting Mr John Jones in 1989, or Mr Gerry Heapes or Mr William McClean in 1990 to murder her husband.
In evidence to Mr Tom O'Connell, prosecuting, Mr Heapes said he had been convicted of an armed robbery in 1977. On release from prison in 1985 he joined a Sinn Fein cumann in Finglas for "a few months" and worked in the rear of the premises leased by Mr Jones, making handkerchiefs and crosses items to raise money for republican prisoners.
There he was introduced to Mrs Nevin, Mr Heapes said. She was "popping in and out".
When the Nevins bought Jack White's Inn, Mr Heapes and his wife attended the opening and stayed overnight. Mrs Nevin introduced him to Mr William McClean. He recalled her pointing and saying: "That's a judge over there. That's an inspector".
Mr Heapes said that after he had worked as security at a Finglas pub in 1989 Mrs Nevin came looking for him in the pub. They went into the lounge. She told him "there was a lot of arguments and she was getting bet up" by Tom. He had met Mr Nevin and thought he was a nice man.
"Then she came out with the bombshell: she wanted to know would I kill her husband."
Mrs Nevin said "she wanted me to kill Tom, or could I get someone to kill him", he alleged. This began "a long course of events".
"I said, look, Catherine, I'll think about it." He said he did not want to be called a male chauvinist but he "just thought it was a woman in one of her moods", and she was "going off her head".
Mr Heapes said he told no one about it, but the next week she again approached him in the pub and only spoke to him when they got into her car. She drove him to the Phoenix Park.
"She asked me did I think about it and I asked her was she serious and she said she was, that she couldn't take any more abuse from Tom and she wanted him killed and to make it look like a robbery.
"I said I couldn't kill him in the pub. There'd be too many people around. I was just making excuses," Mr Heapes said.
Mrs Nevin suggested that if it was done after a bank holiday weekend there would be £25,000 in takings, he alleged.
He said he would not kill someone for £25,000, "so she increased it to £40,000", with £25,000 from the takings and the rest "after six months when everything had died down".
Mr Heapes said Mrs Nevin went on to suggest the killing could be done at the SCR flats where Mr Nevin went weekly to collect rent before making his lodgment in the bank. He claimed she drove him to the flats and "said we could get him when he pulled up to collect the money from the rent".
He told her it was not possible, and when she suggested they wait inside the house, he told her they would be seen through the glass-panelled door. He also told her it would not be possible to use that street for a killing as "you'd crash into someone trying to get away".
The case continues.