The getaway car used in the fatal shooting of the brother of a murdered Real IRA chief was stolen more than four months before the attack.
Vincent Ryan, whose brother Alan was killed in a feud with drugs gangs in 2012, was gunned down on McKee Road in Finglas, north Dublin, on Monday afternoon.
Gardai said the silver Volkswagen Golf used by the hit squad was taken in a burglary on October 13 last year.
Detectives said they wanted to trace the whereabouts of the car – registration 07-KE-10213 – over the last four-and-a-half months after it was taken from a home at Cluaindara, Derrinstown, Co Kildare.
The killers abandoned the vehicle and set it on fire on Red Lane, Newhall, Naas, after the shooting.
Anyone who may have seen this vehicle or knows where it was during the last few months have been asked to contact Finglas Garda station or other Garda contact lines.
Vinnie Ryan, 25, was shot while sitting in a white Volkswagen Golf outside houses in Finglas where his girlfriend and newborn baby daughter were.
His brother Alan was a leading figure in the Real IRA in north Dublin and was gunned down near his family home in the Grange Lodge estate in Clongriffin in 2012.
It is understood he had been embroiled in extortion rackets against drugs gangs in the capital.
Vinnie Ryan, who was originally from Donaghmede, in north Dublin, will be laid to rest next Tuesday after a funeral Mass in Church of the Holy Trinity in his native parish.
A major security operation is expected to take place in the estate after a paramilitary display at his brother’s funeral when a number of masked men fired a volley of shots over his coffin.
Vinnie Ryan was acquitted of possession of an assault rifle and a handgun at the Special Criminal Court in October 2013.