The two men were shot dead and dumped in a canal in a remote area of north Kildare. Another young man is lying low, telling friends that his girl friend has been confronted by armed men in balaclavas with the warning that he would be next. He says that despite reports to the contrary, he has no Garda protection.

Meanwhile in Ballyfermot, a few miles from Dublin city centre, a new low of isolation, vulnerability and terror is palpable in the population. Huge numbers of them packed the vast church for Patrick Murray's removal on Wednesday, many of them teenagers in shock. Meanwhile, adults who have lived all their lives in the area, some of whom have sacrificed much to bring about change, are now so fearful that they will speak only on condition of anonymity.

"There'd be a petrol bomb under the house . . . "

"I'd be shot . . . "

Their faith in justice and the protection of the law has gone. With this week's atrocity, a growing sense that the balance of power has been shifting towards the drug gangs has been vindicated. The 24-year-old man they believe to be responsible for the latest murders, and for much of the area's recent suffering, has been offending with impunity for a long, long time, they say.

Such is the fear of his vicious, psychopathic reputation, that the use of his name alone - in what should have been a safe place - is sufficient to cause a strong woman to raise a finger to her lips and say "Shhh".

That one young man could wield such power through terror would be considered outrageous in other communities, but for the people of Ballyfermot he is only one of three names which trip off the tongue, when considering the kind of man capable of such deeds. And this one, they say, has led a charmed life.

"The guards have been aware of this guy's activities for years and he seemed able to walk away from every incident," added a woman. "They even admit that they know who he is. The papers and television have been writing about him all week, using information given by the guards. So why wasn't something done before this? Why weren't they sitting on him like they did in other cases? Why do they keep pushing the responsibility for producing evidence back on us, instead of using their interviewing and investigation training to get convictions?"

A few years ago, said another woman, she would have defended the Garda. "I think some of them were being intimidated themselves and maybe they began to see us as a lost cause, but I don't have that sympathy for them anymore.

"I know of several cases where that same fellow turned up wearing a balaclava and shooting into the air, and the people he was threatening wouldn't even bother ringing the police. That's how things are here now. They just feel nothing will be done. In a case I know of where a group of innocent young people were attacked like that, and it was reported, no one ever came back to tell them what happened or to reassure them or even to refer some of the kids to Victim Support. Now imagine if something like that happened in Dalkey or Ballsbridge.

"We know there are some great individual gardai, but the institutional view seems to be that as long as the problem is confined to Ballyfermot they're not going to push themselves. The intensive policing exercise that went on here a few years ago showed the level of the dealing that was going on. It also proved that the vast majority of those involved were coming in from outside the area.

"What had the gardai done to stop that developing and festering? How did the dealers get the space to run these massive businesses? The fact that most of these gangs have gone underground this week proves the point. They know the gardai are under pressure to pull people in, so they disappeared. Why isn't that kind of pressure there all the time?"

This alienation permeates the view of the Ballyfermot population, and not only those who phone the tabloid talk shows. "I've lived here for 40 years and reared my kids here, but I'm completely demoralised after this. For the first time, I feel like selling up and getting out," said another woman. "Before this, no matter what happened, I used to feel there was hope. I don't feel that any more. The latest rumour now is that X [another criminal in custody on serious charges] will get off in exchange for saying where another body is buried."

More worrying still is the widespread reluctance to place any trust in Garda confidentiality. Some believe, for example, that unauthorised outsiders seem to be able to access witness statements. They even question whether any meaningful manhunt was put in place for the two young men, reported missing over a week before their bodies were found.

The problem with such allegations is not whether they are true or false (and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that they are true) but that they represent a sincerely held view among intelligent, well-intentioned people.

"If there's such a level of distrust in the area towards the guards, how can they expect co-operation?" asked a man. "People are terrified enough already."

Meanwhile, despite the economic boom and the sustained labours of drugs task forces and other bodies, the view among Ballyfermot residents is that the drug problem has not receded an inch. Local people say they believe now that the problem is not so much one of deprivation as of availability and the fact that the trade has been allowed to flourish in certain areas. "Obviously, a kid in an area awash with heroin is a hundred times more likely to try it than a kid who lives away from it."

In fact, the perception is that drug supplies are plentiful, that the age threshold - for couriers and addicts - has fallen to as low as 12 and 13, and that the waiting lists for vital services have risen. The Methadone Protocol introduced in 1998 to tighten up methadone prescribing, while working well at the control level, has also led to a huge surge of demand on the services and the disappearance of physeptone off the streets. One young woman whose sister tried to get on to a detoxification programme says she was offered "a lifetime on methadone" or a detox bed in two years, if she was lucky.

Locals say they are accustomed to the sight of mothers seeking out pushers for a £20 heroin fix for a child whose withdrawal symptoms have become too agonising to watch, or mothers who resort to moneylenders to pay a child's drug debts, sometimes when the latter has already suffered a brutal battering from the dealer's henchmen.

Such experiences have produced a merciless response to the deaths of young men like Patrick Murray and Darren Carey. There was no evidence that the men were addicts and so no quarter would be given, despite the haunting image of Darren Carey's father trawling the pubs around the New Year, desperately trying to make contact with paramilitaries who might know what had befallen his son.

On the airwaves and the streets, there was a sense of gloating that the "scum bags were wiping each other out", an inference fed by speculative media reporting, suggesting that a bullet in the head was proper order for everyone involved. Police sources speculated that the two men were in debt to the drug gang, linking them to Dutch drug barons.

Because of such comments, the two distraught mothers were goaded into making public statements, one claiming her son's total innocence, the other to say that her son had been "forced" to courier heroin from Amsterdam to Dublin. It was only as the week progressed, when Garda "sources" began to concede that Darren Carey might indeed have been an "innocent victim", that the dangers of rough justice began to manifest themselves.

Father Charlie Hoey, who served in Ballyfermot up to 1 1/2 years ago and presided over Patrick Murray's funeral, appealed to the many young people present not to allow themselves to be "used by drug dealers . . . They will never bring you happiness and only care about lining their own pockets."

The question remains why some people get sucked into drugs and others do not. Whatever the truth of their activities, it appears that both Patrick and Darren were loved. Darren, say neighbours, was his mother's "rock" and never gave any trouble. Patrick came from a strong, tight-knit loving family where, if the mother suspected any drug involvement on his part, said a friend, "he'd have got a good hiding".

The problem for both, it seems, is that drugs were allowed to infest their streets, their playgrounds and their friends. A survey just published by DEFY - Development Education for Youth - shows that the main issues affecting 1,000 young people aged between 12 and 24 were the lack of facilities and drugs. The price of ignoring such signals was manifest this week in the faces of two grieving families and a shocked, despairing community.