Twenty-seven members of the Garda’s National Surveillance Unit had an operation in place on the day the State say Shane Rowan drove to Dublin to collect the AK47s used in the Regency Hotel attack.

Now, the Special Criminal Court will rule on whether or not those officers who are called to give evidence in the trial of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch and his co-accused, Jason Bonney and Paul Murphy, can remain anonymous.

Defence lawyers are objecting to the gardai being anonymised and the three judges of the non-jury court will rule on the application today.

Hutch himself has not been identified in the CCTV, which shows four cars moving around an industrial estate near the northside shopping centre, but his brother Patsy Hutch snr is alleged to have been the driver of a Toyota Yaris car who shared coffee and a bun with Rowan in the early evening before he was caught.

Rowan's car was stopped on March 9, 2016 outside Slane, Co Meath, with the guns in the boot and he would later plead guilty to weapons charges and to membership of the IRA.

Today I’m reporting from the Regency Trial where a calm and collected Monk, charged with murder, has yet to take centre stage.

Crime World, with Nicola Tallant, is a weekly Iri…