Recent shootings are far from what Michael McDowell called the 'sting of a dying wasp', writes Conor Lally.
People on the local authority housing estates of west Dublin, will have taken little comfort from the words of the Taoiseach or the Minister for Justice this week following the latest gangland killing last weekend. "I don't believe there is new energy in crime in Dublin, I believe that it is to some extent the sting of the dying wasp," McDowell said on Monday. Replying to questions in the Dáil on gangland crime, Bertie Ahern sounded more like the leader of an opposition party than the leader of the country when he wondered why the Irish criminal justice system was so easy on gangland figures. He rejected a call, from Joe Higgins TD, for community police, saying gardaí with "pencils and notebooks" could not deal with hardened criminals.
Earlier in the week, and just hours aftera 23-year-old man was killed in a gangland attack in Mulhuddart, McDowell insisted gardaí were winning the battle against the underworld. The gangland subculture which existed in Dublin had largely been broken up thanks to the efforts of gardaí in the city. Such activity had dissipated. Participants were on the back foot and under huge Garda pressure.
The latest gangland figure to suffer the effects of that sting was Paul Cunningham. Two gunmen burst into his home at Dromheath Avenue, Mulhuddart, in the early hours of last Sunday morning and shot him three times as he slept in the bed he was sharing with his girlfriend. Cunningham - a known armed robber and drug dealer - was hit twice in the legs and once in the chest. His 18-month-old son was sleeping next to his parents' bed as the gunmen struck.
CUNNINGHAM WAS THE sixth person to be killed in the last 18 months in feuding between west Dublin criminals. Last November, gardaí responded to the violence and shootings in the area by establishing Operation Crossover for two months. That involved drafting in the armed Emergency Response Unit to support local gardaí and detectives in patrolling housing estates in Blanchardstown and Finglas where known criminals live and operate. Roving checkpoints were also erected to disrupt the activity of criminals and track their movements. Crossover II was begun two weeks ago, on the orders of the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, and will remain in place until the end of the year.
The feuding and murder in west Dublin is confined to a small number of estates and involves relatively few residents. Gardaí in Blanchardstown estimate there are around 12 key criminals, each of whom has a group of associates, causing most of the trouble in all of west Dublin. But they have a plentiful supply of guns, which they have taken to using with alarming frequency. While the murders make the news there are unreported shootings almost every week.
None of the participants, bar two or three, is making serious money from their criminality. Most are heavy drinkers and drug users - cocaine and steroids being the preferred poisons. They have, in most instances, become embroiled in disputes over minor matters which generally arise during drunken brawls. Grudges are held for a long time. The participants vent their spleen in the shape of drive-by shootings on houses or, in some cases, by wounding or killing their foe. One shooting begets another in a seemingly endless tit-for-tat sequence.
Gardaí are now bracing themselves for more bloodshed following Cunningham's murder last week. They'll tell you privately the only unknown variables in the equation are who will be next and when. But, like the pockets of Limerick city which house a cohort of violent and dangerous young men, west Dublin's problems haven't emerged only in the recent past.
Until the mid 1970s, the population of Dublin 15 was under 5,000. There then began a massive building project in the area during which 2,500 local authority houses were built. Most residents were transferred from the inner city and the current trouble is concentrated in some of these estates. The men involved are in their 20s, having been born when the estates were built. The population of Dublin 15 is now 70,000, who live in 28,000 local authority and private houses.
Joan Burton TD, Labour's deputy in the Dublin West constituency, says most of the men of violence in the area were at-risk children who dropped out of education while still in national school. However, the area is, by and large, a very prosperous one and these young men are not victims of society, she says. Gone are the unemployment and poverty that may have been cited a decade ago. Rather, they come from families who "never quite made it".
"Around 20 years ago, Corduff was the home of John Gilligan. When he got involved in drugs, that spread to other sections of the community. Around 10 or 12 years ago the drug market exploded and we now have guns around in numbers we never had before." Burton "really objects" to McDowell's "dying wasp" reference and insists the Minister is in a position to help resolve the problems in her constituency.
"THE GARDAÍ ARE doing the best they can and there are some fine policemen out there. But people will tell you that they haven't seen the gardaí for years. What's needed is more community policing, with gardaí actually on the streets in a visible way and working with local people and gaining their confidence. It's worked in places like New York and Baltimore and I've been to Boston and seen it working.
"We also need intervention programmes in primary school to prevent boys leaving early and drifting into crime," says Burton. "These guys are going around killing each other, they feel they have a licence to kill. So you can just imagine the other problems they are causing, harassing people, going around making people's lives hell.
"When you give these people a sense of impunity, when the gardaí are so overstretched that some residents haven't seen them for years, then don't be surprised if estates turn into a no-go area. Don't be surprised by that."