Gardaí suspected that a pump-action shotgun seized from criminals in 2023 was stolen from Kildare gardaí.

An internal investigation, marked ‘Secret’, established that it was last seen and held in Kildare Garda Station in September 2010.

For 13 years, garda management did not know the shotgun was missing, and the discovery was only made when gardaí seized the gun from criminals in August 2023 and discovered it had been seized before.

The shotgun, a 12 gauge, sawn-off, pump-action Winchester, was first seized by gardaí in a planned drugs raid in Kildare in 2009 but was unaccounted for from 2010, when it was last recorded in Kildare Garda Station, until gardaí again seized it from criminals in Mullingar on 9 August 2023.

An internal garda investigation established that the last record and sighting of the shotgun before August 2023 was as an exhibit in an exhibits bag held by gardaí at Kildare Garda Station on 27 September 2010.

Seventy-two rounds of ammunition seized in the planned raid in 2009 were also never accounted for or located.

The 2009 seizure led to a conviction, and the exhibits, including the shotgun and ammunition had been returned to Kildare Garda Station in 2010.

Two men were also convicted in connection with the 2023 seizure in Mullingar.

In October 2024, the internal investigation report into how the Winchester shotgun turned up twice in garda seizures concluded that the shotgun had made its way back into criminal hands because it was stolen but stopped short of saying it was stolen from Kildare Garda Station.

However, it said that the keys to an understairs cupboard where guns were held at the station were stored in a press in the public office and were “readily accessible to all garda members or any other person who may have had access to Kildare Garda Station, with no control mechanisms in place”.

It found “very poor recording systems and processes in place in Kildare Garda Station surrounding the recording, management and destruction of firearms at the time”.

It assessed “on the balance of probability, and with no credible evidence to the contrary, that the firearm was the subject of a theft”.

But it stated: “It has not been possible, however, to establish when the firearm was stolen, from where it was stolen or by whom it was stolen”.

2014 audit ‘ambiguous’

Separately, the organisation’s handling of an audit of firearms at Kildare Garda Station in 2014 failed to pick up the significance of a finding that the gun was “not viewed” when the audit took place.

The internal investigation found that an audit at Kildare Garda Station in 2014 detected that the Winchester and other firearms were missing in an inventory check, but local management were not aware of that due to what it described as an “ambiguity” in the wording of the audit.

Local management assumed that weapons marked as “Not Viewed” were simply not inspected at the time of the audit. The investigation found no evidence that the ambiguity had been clarified by management.

An Garda Síochána has been approached by RTÉ Investigates for comment, but at the time of publication, no response had been received.

Gardaí seized the gun from criminals on the streets of Mullingar on 9 August 2023.

The Ballistics Section at Garda headquarters examined the gun and checked the serial number on it. They found a match on the garda database, Pulse, showing that gardaí had seized the gun before in a planned garda drugs raid on a house in Co Kildare in 2009.

In late August 2023, the former Garda Commissioner Drew Harris ordered a fact-finding exercise. In September 2023, that was quickly followed by an internal investigation into how and where the Winchester went missing.

The fact-finding exercise and investigation were conducted by officers from the Eastern Region. Within days, the focus of its inquiries was Kildare Garda Station.

It reported back in late October 2024. Marked ‘Secret’, the investigation file stated:

“It is assessed that the firearm, given the circumstances surrounding its seizure in Mullingar on 9 August 2023, was the subject of a theft, however, it has not been possible to establish when the firearm was stolen, from where it was stolen or by whom it was stolen.”

Extensive inquiries with local firearms dealers and handlers with whom Kildare gardaí had “haphazard” arrangements for destruction of weapons failed to establish the whereabouts of the Winchester shotgun or any trace of it in their records.

Records in Kildare Garda Station itself were found to be “extremely poor” or absent.

Discrepancies

The report considered “significant weaknesses” in record keeping and handling of firearms and ammunition coming into the station and being sent for destruction from it.

Firearms records were “extremely poor” and at times “absent”, with discrepancies between entries on the Garda Pulse database and what was in the station.

“Discrepancies between what is recorded on Pulse against station records and what was physically stored in the armoury at Kildare Garda Station were found”, it stated.

The internal report did not contain recommendations but said that the investigation file should be shared with the then chief superintendent of Kildare division “for information” and for appropriate classification of the incident on Pulse.

Garda headquarter failings

The news that gardaí found that a gun used by criminals could have been stolen from Kildare gardaí is one of a series of revelations associated with a programme to be broadcast by RTÉ Investigates on Wednesday, 16 September at 9.35pm on RTÉ One.

The poor systems of weapons control and management identified in Kildare mirror similar concerns about hundreds of guns and other weapons and over a half million rounds of ammunition then stored in a shipping container at garda headquarters itself.

The RTÉ Investigates documentary will reveal findings of a separate garda audit of the contents of the shipping container, where significant disparities between weapons in the container and what was recorded on Pulse were found.

Internal reports for garda headquarters also found failings of record-keeping, storage and security in the wider Garda Firearms Stores, which holds weapons and ammunition for the gardaí.