The Arms Crisis was a political scandal in the Republic of Ireland in 1970 in which Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were dismissed as cabinet ministers for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle arms to the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. At the ensuing Arms Trial, charges against Blaney were dropped, and Haughey, along with co-defendants Captain James Kelly, John Kelly and Belgian businessman Albert Luykx, were found not guilty of conspiracy. Blaney claimed that the then government knew about the plan, while Haughey denied this.