A DUBLIN criminal is recovering in hospital after being shot in what gardaí are treating as an attempted murder.
Frank Nolan, (48) from Ballyfermot in the west of the city, was shot yesterday afternoon by a gunman who approached him on the street and opened fire with a handgun before escaping on a bicycle.
The incident occurred at 3.20pm as Mr Nolan was walking on Oranmore Road just a few hundred yards from his home.
He was taken by ambulance to St James’s Hospital where he has undergone surgery for his wounds. He was hit in the upper body and while he is seriously ill Garda sources said he was expected to survive.
The scene of the shooting was sealed off and underwent a forensic examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau. Gardaí in Ballyfermot have appealed for anyone who was in the area and may have seen the shooting or the gunman cycling off to come forward and speak to them in confidence.
Mr Nolan was an associate of Liam Kenny (53), who was shot dead at his home in Clondalkin, Dublin in June. Kenny was a member of the Continuity IRA and gardaí believe he was shot dead by drug dealers in west Dublin as part of a localised extortion-based feud.
Gardaí are now trying to establish if there is any link between yesterday’s shooting of Mr Nolan and the murder of Liam Kenny.
In June 2000 Mr Nolan was sentenced to three years for his role in a shooting when a man was seriously wounded in an on-street attack but survived.
Mr Nolan was an accomplice to another man who carried out the shooting, former IRA member Anthony Beggs.
In June 2000 the Special Criminal Court sentenced Beggs, then aged 37 with an address on Ballyfermot Road, to five years in jail for shooting his ex-girlfriend’s husband.
The court heard that Beggs and Nolan had 18 months previously confronted Patrick Donohoe after they left a pub in Ballyfermot.
The court heard Beggs pointed a handgun at Mr Donohoe’s head and said: “Don’t look at me in the pub.” A struggle ensued and Beggs then pointed the gun at Mr Donohoe’s groin area and it went off, injuring him in the thigh.