Jason Keating jailed for helping gang murder Noel Kirwan

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Jason Keating was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Special Criminal Court for helping a criminal gang murder Noel Kirwan. The proceedings were reported on 12 December 2018.

Keating admitted participating in the activities of a criminal organisation and helping the gang murder Kirwan. A murder charge against him was dropped after his admission.

Kirwan was shot dead outside his Dublin home three days before Christmas in 2016. Gardaí told the court he had no involvement in criminality and that the only motive they could establish for his murder was that he had been photographed beside Gerard Hutch, known as ‘The Monk’.

The report said Keating was involved in retrieving a tracker from Kirwan’s car and transferring it to a new car Kirwan bought two days before his murder. Keating was in the getaway car, in contact with the person monitoring the tracker, and passed details to the person believed to have shot Kirwan. He brought the killer to and from the scene.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the maximum sentence for the offence was 15 years. The headline sentence was 13-and-a-half years, with a three-and-a-half-year discount for the guilty plea and other mitigation.