A CONVICTED IRA terrorist and former Sinn Fein election candidate has been served with a tax demand for €1.5m by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

The agency began an investigation into John Noonan’s finances after a company with which he was thought to be connected was linked to Martin Hyland, a drug dealer shot dead in Dublin almost two years ago.

Noonan is disputing the tax bill, one of the largest ever served by the bureau, as excessive and unfair. “I don’t wish to discuss the case as it is ongoing and is under appeal,” he said last week.

“I have been issued with a tax demand but I don’t want to say anything more until everything has been agreed and signed off. I'll have no problem answering any questions when the case is over.”

Noonan is one of several former republicans targeted by the CAB, which was established in 1996 to seize the proceeds of crime and terrorism. He was the adjutant officer of the Provisional IRA’s Dublin brigade for most of the 1980s.

He was convicted of firearms offences in the 1970s and jailed for five years. He stood for Sinn Fein in the European elections in 1984 and was a prominent anti-drugs activist throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

The bureau began investigating his wealth in 2006 when it linked him to Hyland, who was murdered by members of his own gang as he slept in a house in Finglas. Noonan had been monitored meeting Hyland by undercover gardai some weeks previously.

Bureau officials raided his home in February 2007 after the publication of an interview he gave to Hot Press, a music magazine, to promote his autobiography, What Do I Do Now? In the interview, Noonan said rumours of a CAB investigation into his finances were unfounded and claimed to run a licensed security company.

The bureau later raided his home in Fettercairn, Tallaght, and a number of other premises in Dublin. He is said to have presented himself to CAB on the day of the raids and offered to reach a settlement without a legal confrontation.

He admitted to owning assets in Wexford and Dublin, and apartments and a villa in Torrevieja on the Costa Blanca, Spain.

His property portfolio was estimated to be worth about €1.5m, although the value has fallen because of the recession. Noonan denied any financial links to Hyland, but admitted to meeting him several times to get information for a crime thriller he planned to publish.

In meetings with the bureau, Noonan is thought to have given details of the IRA’s money-laundering operations in Dublin in the 1980s, according to a former IRA member familiar with his activities.

He said: “No one knows for sure where he got his money from, but it didn’t come from the IRA.”

Noonan claims his wealth comes from working in the security industry and by providing security to film production companies.

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