It is known that Kieran Doherty would have been close to dissident republican groups.

He was convicted of taking part in a robbery in Donegal and spent several years in Portlaoise Prison where he participated in a hunger strike over conditions faced by republican inmates.

In last night’s statement, a spokesman for the Real IRA’s Derry brigade claimed Mr Doherty had been a senior member.

There were also suggestions that Mr Doherty had been involved in the renting of a Donegal house where a cannabis cultivating operation had been discovered.

It is understood another senior republican, Seamus McGreevy, who was facing extradition to Lithuania over links to an arms smuggling plot, took his own life earlier this month following the half million pound narcotics find.

McGreevy, who had received a four-year prison sentence in 2001 after admitting his role in a Real IRA training camp, was said to have been “stressed” because of the drugs discovery.

Kieran Doherty had also alleged that he was being hassled by MI5 to turn informer. In November last year he claimed that his attempts to open a business had been blocked because he would not agree to provide information to ‘spooks.’