Undercover gardaí had a face-to-face meeting with Carlow shopping centre shooter Evan Fitzgerald at a Dublin pub nine days before they arrested him and two friends in a covert sting operation, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Investigators took photographs of Mr Fitzgerald and put the troubled young man under surveillance after the meeting, leading to his identification.

Yet the boss of the undercover officer who met Mr Fitzgerald in the pub said in court documents that the male who was trying to procure firearms and ammunition remained ‘unidentified’ following the interaction with the garda at the face-to-face meeting.

The statement is contained in the book of evidence – seen by the MoS – submitted in the trial of Mr Fitzgerald’s two friends, Daniel Quinn Burke and Shane Kinsella.

This week, Mr Kinsella, 22, from Tynock, Kiltegan, Co. Wicklow, and Daniel Quinn Burke, 22, from Allendale Lawn in Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow were both given three-year sentences, suspended in full for five years. 

Both men had pleaded guilty to possessing a rifle, a semi-automatic pistol and ammunition in March 2, 2024 – the day of the Garda sting operation – near Straffan in Co. Kildare.

After their sentencing at Naas Circuit Court, Judge Elva Duffy noted it was a ‘very unusual’ case and that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had taken the ‘unusual step’ of accepting the offences did not warrant the mandatory sentence of five years.

However, the book of evidence in the case reveals previously undisclosed details of the complex undercover operation to arrest Mr Fitzgerald and his friends – and that the firearms they paid for were guns previously seized by gardaí.

Last year, the MoS reported how a protected disclosure made by a senior garda detailed that a foreign intelligence agency contacted gardaí after they became aware of an Irish citizen trying to purchase firearms on the dark web and that the gardaí proceeded to supply them with guns previously seized by An Garda Síochána.

Details of what happened at the face-to-face meeting were not offered directly in evidence by gardaí, but are contained in the Garda interview of Evan Fitzgerald on the day of his arrest which forms an exhibit in the book of evidence.

The undercover garda who met him face-to-face weeks before the sting was not listed on the schedule of witnesses in the book of evidence.

Witness statements in the book of evidence signed on June 5, 2025 – four days after Evan Fitzgerald took his own life at Carlow Shopping Centre – reveal how a member of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau and dark web expert first engaged with Mr Fitzgerald after gardaí received a tip-off from the FBI.

Posing as a firearms dealer, he set up a proton email address, Irishdeliveries@protonmail.net, to communicate with Mr Fitzgerald, who was then identified through a username, DefCon8, a US military reference to nuclear war preparedness.

In his Garda interview, the young man told how the person he believed to be an arms dealer ‘got me to download proton mail’ and ‘asked me to get a burner phone’.

In an email dated January 22, the undercover garda offers to sell ‘DefCon8’ a ‘G3’ Heckler and Koch battle rifle for €1,300, a Serbian-made Zavasta 76m automatic rifle also for €1,300, two Tokarev handguns for €1,000 each and a 9mm automatic pistol, also for €1,000. The garda also tells the unsuspecting buyer he ‘can get anything and customers tend to come back for more’.

On February 2, the case was handed over to a senior detective inspector with the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and an undercover agent referred to in the documents as ‘Undercover Officer FG’.

The statement from the Garda supervising the undercover operation, referred to as ‘ES’ details how the investigation continued: ‘On the 8 February, authorisation was granted for the deployment of undercover resources for the purpose of identifying the person(s) attempting to purchase firearms and ammunition on the dark net.’

The senior undercover officer’s statement makes repeated references to gardaí being aware of potential accusations of ‘entrapment’.

He noted: ‘Throughout these conversations [with the assembled team] I considered all available tactical options and detailed my members accordingly, all the while being conscious of the rules of engagement between the undercover officer and the unknown person(s) as they related to agent provocateur, entrapment and the potential to infringe on a person’s human rights.’

‘ES’ said of the planned meet up: ‘A face-to-face was arranged to take place on the 22 February 2024 in the Dublin City area. I was aware that the purpose of the meeting was to build trust between the UCO [undercover officer] and the operator of DefCon8. 

'And I provided tactical advice around how best to proceed with and manage the face-to-face meeting with the person… and any discussions that may take this meeting around the purchase of firearms and ammunition.’

FG arranged to meet ‘DefCon8’ at Fagan’s pub in Drumcondra, the well-known bar associated with former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

In his statement, Evan Fitzgerald confirms he met his contact at the pub: ‘I did a meet up with them in Dublin just to talk. That was outside of Finnigan’s [FAGAN’s} pub. There was like a small park outside of that. 

'They wanted to see if I could turn up. Nothing was really said. He had a Covid mask on him. Just one person. To talk better he removed it and I saw his face.’

A senior Garda source this weekend confirmed undercover gardaí followed Mr Fitzgerald as he left the pub to a train station in Dublin, where he boarded a train to Carlow. Undercover officers boarded the train, while other gardaí followed by car.

The source told the MoS: ‘They lost him at Carlow but were able to identify him by photograph thanks the face-to-face meeting and were aware that he was a young man, without a criminal record or any connection to any organisation.

‘This is clear from the first court appearances, when gardaí do not oppose bail and say that there is no evidence of connection to other organisation.’

Mr Fitzgerald and his friends were arrested in a dramatic sting operation after he had taken possession of the guns from undercover officers at the Grand Canal in Co. Kildare.

During the operation, which involved several of An Garda Síochána’s most elite units, members of the Emergency Response Unit swooped on the three young men, smashed their car windows, threw them to the ground and handcuffed them.

Despite having been identified by investigators, a pre-operation briefing on March 2 was told that the men seeking to acquire the weapons in the sting operation were unknown.

The book of evidence details numerous officers – including ‘ES’ who was in charge of the undercover agent who met Mr Fitzgerald in Fagan’s – saying they did not know the identity of the person who was buying the guns and ammunition, who was referred to in the statements as ‘an unknown male’ and ‘unidentified person(s)’, and ‘individuals… yet to be identified’.

Members of the Emergency Response Unit were among those who were not informed of the identity of the main suspect.

Last June, when questioned about the Garda handling of the case at the Oireachtas Justice Committee, then-Commissioner Drew Harris repeatedly refused to respond when asked by Senator Michael McDowell and Labour TD Alan Kelly if undercover gardaí engaged ‘face-to-face with this young man prior to the delivery of guns and ammunition’

The transcript of Mr Fitzgerald’s interview with gardaí following his arrest, shows the young man was wracked with guilt about his actions and took full responsibility for trying to procure the firearms. He also spoke openly about his learning difficulties and said he had no intention of hurting others or himself with the guns.

Videos posted by Mr Fitzgerald – who was ordered not to have any contact with his two friends after their arrest – to them and family members a year later appear to show a significant decline in his mental health and wellbeing.

In a message to Mr Kinsella and Mr Burke, he said: ‘I’ve f***ed up your lives so badly, and I feel like the least I can do is, kind of, die.’

He also tells them: ‘I hope my death is at least beneficial in the eyes of the court.’

The Garda Press Office defended the force’s handling of the undercover operation.

In a statement, a spokesman said: ‘The intervention in this case occurred following the appropriate risk assessment and the intervention team conducted their duty as per best practice to ensure the safety of all persons, including those arrested, members of the public and the members of An Garda Síochána.

‘All such cases will involve similar armed intervention and there is nothing that has arisen in this case to indicate that matters should have been approached differently.

‘The members of An Garda Síochána who planned and conducted this intervention are experts in their field.’

They did not respond to queries asking how officers involved in the operation that resulted in the arrests of Mr Fitzgerald and his friends were not able to identify him, despite the young man’s meeting with an undercover officer at Fagan’s pub two weeks earlier.

Asked why this officer did not provide a witness statement for the book of evidence, a spokesman said: ‘The prosecution of cases of serious crimes is a matter for the independent Office of the DPP.’

One long-serving senior garda told the MoS: ‘It was clear Evan was not a huge danger, and many of us would have intervened in another manner, which would have involved speaking to the young men and their families.

‘There is disquiet in the Garda about this. One of my colleagues said the attitude was “high fives all round, for a job done well.” There is a young man dead now who could have been alive today if this was handled differently.’