Niall Donald

So they're trying to put him in that context of people like Jason Keating, who got 10 years, or Martin Aylburn, who got, I think it was six years for that.

But, you know, whatever the defense put forward, the evidence still is clear about McGovern having a directing role in this murder.

That is the facts.

And of course, it's proven by the fact he pled guilty to that charge.

So accepting that...

We'll obviously then move into where the judges are, I suppose, asked to assess the sentence that he can be given.

And obviously for directing criminal gang, I think that you can be given a life sentence, though I don't think anybody has yet to be given that charge.

What sort of issues did the defence put forward at this point to sort of mitigate this sentence?

A consecutive sentence, which you can get either a concurrent sentence or a consecutive sentence.

A concurrent sentence would be where on both charges you get something like 15 years and they're both served at the same time.

a consecutive sentence would be each sentence is served one after the other.

And they're much less common in Irish courts.

And of course, the Kirwan, the death of Noel Kirwan was a murder and it resulted in a murder.

James Gaitley certainly didn't result in a murder and that's automatically going to be a different tariff anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I suppose they're looking at Michael McEvitt.

Of course, Michael McEvitt passed away a couple of years ago, but he had been a member of the Provisional IRA and he broke over to ceasefire and he'd set up the real IRA.

And obviously he was being linked to the OMA bombing, though he was never convicted of that.

So he got a 20-year sentence.

And so, you know, in theory, they're looking at McGovern and saying, well, even if he gets 20 years, that will be reduced for an early plea by about a quarter.