Limerick man John Dundon’s lawyers are in the Supreme Court to try delay his trial for the murder of Garryowen rugby player Shane Geoghegan.

The 30-year-old from Hyde Road, who has recently been on hunger strike in Portlaoise Prison, is not present. However Shane Geoghegan’s mother Mary is in court.

John Dundon was charged last October with the murder of the rugby player who was shot in Dooradoyle near his home in November 2008.

The 30 year old accused man was due to go on trial at the Special Criminal Court on June 4th last.

His lawyers applied to the trial court and the High Court to adjourn the case until next year but both courts refused to delay proceedings.

The matter is now before the Supreme Court on appeal.

'Gap of 7 months'

Defence barrister Martin O’Rourke, SC, has outlined to the court that there was a gap of 7 months between John Dundon being charged with murder and the prosecution serving the defence with 27,000 pages of unfiltered evidence.

419 disks of CCTV footage were also received.

Mr O’Rourke claims the prosecution has not given a sufficient reason for what he says looks like a ‘deliberate attempt to delay disclosure.

He rejects the prosecution’s assertion that the documents are utterly irrelevant in circumstances where the material has been assessed by An Garda Siochana but not State lawyers.

He has told the court it will take the defence around 3 months to sift through the files and that they will probably be ready to proceed to trial in the autumn.

The Special Criminal Court refused to put the case back after garda evidence that there was a risk to the life of a prosecution witness and that an adjournment would increase that risk.

Mr. O’Rourke claims specific security measures are in place for the witness as the threat has existed since 2010 when the woman’s family fell out with the Dundons.

He says the Special Criminal Court’s primary concern should have been John Dundon’s right to a fair trial.