With the recent spate of gang-related killings spilling into new areas of Dublin, it seems the new breed of criminals come from a lost generation, writes Kathy Sheridan
Gangland invaded the affluent Dublin suburbs this week, leaving three bullet-riddled bodies and many stunned residents in its wake. "This is normally a very quiet area . . . I can't believe it," said a woman in the mature, middle-class suburb of Firhouse, after two men sitting in a silver Lexus on a quiet cul-de-sac were shot dead on Sunday night.
"This is the kind of thing that usually happens in Crumlin or Tallaght," said a Clontarf resident, after a passenger in a Ford Mondeo travelling through the area on Tuesday night was shot dead and the driver forced to run for his life.
Clontarf is not accustomed to the sight of bloodied bodies or sniffer dogs, a helicopter clattering overhead, a media onslaught and swarms of gardaí holding bullet-proof shields yelling "armed gardaí" as they bang on doors.
"Well, the story isn't all crap then, is it?" shrugged a southside community activist. "The classes who think the 'scum' should be left to wipe one another out got a taste of their own medicine. What did they think was going to happen?"
The so-called "Crumlin feud" alone - which stemmed from a Garda seizure of €1 million worth of ecstasy and cocaine in a Dublin city centre hotel in 2000, followed by a murderous split over who might have given the tip-off - has claimed seven lives so far, and seen six attempted murders. Some 18 lives in total are believed to have been lost in Dublin gangland killings this year.
This week, community figures around Drimnagh and Crumlin normally happy to voice their opinions were keeping their heads down. Some said it was out of reluctance to bring the spotlight further on decent, old neighbourhoods. Others said it was out of respect for the bereaved families: "No mother sends her boy out to shoot someone." Two brothers from Drimnagh - John Roche (24) and his brother Noel (27), killed last Sunday - died within six months of each other.
But for many the unwillingness to comment was born of naked fear. "You'd be afraid to open your mouth," said one. "Will you pay for my windows when they're smashed in?" Another described "the aura of gloom" hanging over the area. "This community is 60 years old. It's our community, our place. The older people are appalled. It's just sad . . ."
As almost every comment was prefixed with variants of the view that the "criminals are only laughing at the guards", there was mainly scepticism at the decision to allocate an extra 50 officers to tackling organised crime in the capital. The new unit, announced the day after the Clontarf killing, will be headed by Det Chief Supt Noel White, under the National Support Services jurisdiction of Assistant Commissioner Martin Callinan.
Det Supt White is a 54-year-old native of Carndonagh, Co Donegal, who joined the Garda when he was 19. Though not a man to court the media, he comes with a solid reputation and long experience of criminal investigation around the capital. He was the man temporarily assigned as chief supt to Donegal in 2003 for two years, when the worst of the revelations of police corruption were filtering into the public domain.
He sees his new appointment as "directing a lot of young people towards the right decisions . . . What we will be doing is targeting these individuals and criminal groups on a structured basis. However, I would hate to give the impression that we are going to solve this overnight. It will have to be worked at." But he is adamant that, despite public scepticism, no-one is untouchable. "The wheel comes around."
It is believed that the extra 50 gardaí will bring the unit strength up to around 100. The downside is that these experienced officers have been drawn from already hard-pressed stations all round the city, such as Ballyfermot, Crumlin, Finglas and Tallaght.
MANY OBSERVERS SEE echoes in this week's events of the anarchy or "gangland law" that prevailed in the lead-up to the killings of Veronica Guerin and Garda Jerry McCabe nearly 10 years ago. "It took the murder of a journalist to put some steel in their spines before - but what happened then? They did the same this time: waited till it hit their own kind of places before they did anything," said a Crumlin resident.
Privately, gardaí at all levels would agree. Few doubt the commitment of the Commissioner, Noel Conroy. It's the money and resources that have been lacking in a war which many say has changed in pace and nature to those fought 10 or 20 years ago. The change in pace was evident in the startling speed of the reprisals for Sunday's deaths. The change in what one garda calls "attitude" is obvious in the increasing willingness of young men to face a former friend or colleague and shoot him in the head.
How much of this is attributable to the disinhibition caused by cocaine is unknown. "Where before they'd have needed a few jars to settle their nerves before a 'job', now a lot of them would be taking sniffs of cocaine which makes them all the more volatile," says another garda. "But you'd also have the fellow who is totally calculating, cool as a breeze, good at what he does."
"The groups are a lot younger now; most are in their early to mid-20s. Years ago, the hardcore criminals were affiliated to different gangs. Ten years ago you had the hardcore criminal groups like Gilligan and co and the remnants of what was left of Martin Cahill's. They came from north and south of the city and everyone stayed in their own areas. Now there's city-wide roaming of all kinds and they're inter-linking and networking a lot more. These fellows are no idiots. They're accomplished at what they do."
The greater sophistication is evident in gang members' ease with technology. Apart from their numerous, disposable mobile phones, coded conversations on internet chat rooms are also a favoured method of communication.
They also have a lot more firepower, reflected in the fact that the main participants in the Crumlin feud, for example, are known to wear bulletproof vests. A lot of sophisticated weaponry such as automatic pistols comes in through freight and ferry, along with the drugs and drug precursors (for manufacturing here) being smuggled in. Lorries have been found with modified chassis, which allow the floor to slide back.
Once suspects are pulled into garda stations, it gets no easier, says a garda. The right to silence prevails. "Often you get no response, good, bad or indifferent. Of course, he has to be cautioned - he's been told that anything he does say will be written down and taken in evidence. Usually what you have then is a very one-sided conversation. Often, they'll just smile at you." Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act obliges suspects to account for their movements, "but in nine cases out of 10, it doesn't apply and you're seen to be oppressive if you push it. We have legislation where an inference can be drawn . . . Say I search a house and find a gun that was used to shoot someone. The house-owner comes in and says 'never saw that gun before'. That's all he has to say. I remember a case where I found a gun in an individual's apartment and no charge came out of it. It was felt that it could have been there without his knowledge. It made no sense to me at the time but experience teaches you; you have to be more clinical, concentrate on the evidence, and learn to walk away."
ONE SENIOR COUNSEL told The Irish Times that in many years at the bar he has only once seen the prosecution rely on sections 18 and 19 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, which allow a court to draw adverse inference where a suspect has failed to account for his movements or, if found with something compromising, has failed to account for that.
Nevertheless, there is a strongly held view among gardaí and others in the justice system that the right to silence should be amended. "Where there is a substantial body of evidence to indicate that an individual was involvedin a particular crime, there should be some obligation on him to account for those indications that he has committed that crime. There should be a cut-off point, a situation where when you produce substantial evidence, there is some obligation on the individual to account for it."
The introduction of video cameras to interrogation rooms in Garda stations means that the trial judge can independently assess whether there has been assault or oppression, a development welcomed by most gardaí. Under the law, the suspect is also entitled to a copy of the interview tape. "We had instances where these tapes were being shown in pubs, for a laugh. But they can also be a form of control," says a garda. "If you're a minion, you're going to be asked [ by the gang leaders] to hand over the tape. They want to see if he gave any information he shouldn't have. Of course that doesn't help us either."
Despite the video technology, gardaí must still abide by the literal words of the legal caution and write down anything the suspect might have to say, substantially slowing down the pace and spontaneity of the questioning.
And, at a human level, theirs is the burden of handling the fallout from what one angry Dublin south-central primary school teacher calls "a lost generation of children".
"They are coming into school and haven't washed or had a breakfast; they've been up all night looking at blue movies in homes where the norm is alcohol all round them; the extended family is engaged in crime and drugs are being peddled. They are coming into the school environment with a different value system and they are slipping through the social services net, growing up with no limits and laughing at the guards to their faces. Parents who weren't parented themselves can't cope - or don't want to cope - and are begging for supports that aren't there . . . There is a generation between the age of six up to 18 or 20 who are out of control and it is a lost generation. They are beyond the pale. At 15, it's too late. You have to get them in the womb. If you don't, this is how it starts . . ."