COMMDT Ray Quinn, whose wife Joyce was murdered on Tuesday night, spoke of his anguish from his home in the Curragh yesterday.
"Our family are in a terrible agony here. This is happening to too many families at the moment in this country. It seems to me we're losing the battle against crime. That's just it", he said.
"Now 1 do a lot of work with gardai. I meet fellas daily that have run across factory roofs at night after thugs and lads who have chased ram raiders at 130 miles an hour. Now, why would they do this and risk their lives?
"And maybe when these fellas are caught and even if they're convicted, they're not even jailed.
"Now we're talking about prison spaces. We're not talking about tinkering around with Castlerea or Mickey Mouse things in the Curragh or Portlaoise. We need big American style prisons these things with a thousand prisoners plus, that are heavy on prisoner space and less on warden activity.
"As I understand it, there's nearly as many prison wardens as there are prisoners at the moment in our system and this has to be mad.
"We want to stop this agony for other families. It's too late for my wife.
"Look, I'm sure Mrs Owen (the Minister for Justice) is very sympathetic to my plight and the other families, but that's no use. We want theses people put off the streets. Our economic boom is no flipping use to us at all if we don't have security for our families. It's just hopeless.
"1 would plead with the public to, cooperate with the gardai and for the Minister for Justice in particular to please start moving on the prison system and try to do something credible and sensible."
Joyce and Ray Quinn would have been married 23 years next June. They had three children, Nicole (21), David (16) and Lisa (14). The family moved to the area more than five years ago, and has lived about five miles from the shop which Mrs Quinn ran in Milltown, Co Kildare.
Mr Quinn said he was late home from work on Tuesday evening because he had been at Joyce's sister's house in Dublin, installing a panic button. She lives in the area where civil servant Marilyn Rynn was murdered before Christmas, he said.
He got worried at about 7.15 p.m. when Joyce had not arrived home.
He tried to telephone her on a mobile phone but got a message that she was out of range. He drove to Milltown with his 16 year old son, David. Then they drove to Newbridge where he thought Joyce might have gone to give blood.
"I even drove along the blasted road where they found her," he said