Gardaí have released without charge a man who was arrested in relation to a shooting in October 2008 that has left the victim in a permanent vegetative state.
Dubliner Robert Delany (29) was hit in the face with pellets from a shotgun blast at his apartment in Tallaght. The father of two has been left with no brain function, and his family have been told he has no hope of recovery.
A man (20) who was arrested yesterday and held at Tallaght Garda station was released early this morning, and a file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Ten people so far have been arrested in relation to the shooting.
Last month, three other suspects held over the shooting were released without charge from Garda custody.
Gardaí believe Mr Delany, who was never involved in crime, was shot because he had intervened in a pub row. He struck a man whose father is a former member of the Provisional IRA – now a businessman, aged 57 – who was among the three arrested on September 6th. He was arrested at his home in Tallaght. His close associate, aged 31, was arrested in Co Kildare and a third man, aged 32, was also arrested in Tallaght.
The three men had been detained at Tallaght and Rathfarnham Garda stations under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
The man believed to have shot Mr Delany was Daniel Gaynor (25) from Finglas. A known gangland figure, Gaynor was shot dead in Finglas last month.
Mr Delany, a painter and decorator who had taken a job as a postman months before he was attacked, was at home with his girlfriend and two children at an apartment on Russell Rise, off Fortunestown Way, Tallaght, when he was shot on October 22nd, 2008.
A caller rang the bell of his apartment at 6.30am. When Mr Delaney looked over his balcony to see who was outside, he was shot by a man who was standing on the pavement.
Mr Delany was hit in the face with shotgun pellets. The gunman and an accomplice escaped and gardaí later found a car they used.