Garda Commissioner to brief Enda Kenny on gang violence

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is to receive a briefing from Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan on Wednesday on the security situation in Dublin's north inner city after another gangland killing.

Mr Kenny is to meet Ms O'Sullivan at 7pm meeting following Opposition questions on the Government's response to the killing on Tuesday of Gareth Hutch. Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and an assistant garda commissioner would also be present, he told the Dáil.

He said the briefing would involve details of what resources were there currently and what was needed going forward. “I will share that with the leaders of the groups here so that you are fully up to date on what the situation is,’’ he added.

Mr Kenny also said a task force would be set up “dealing with this local situation in the inner city and an action-based national strategy dealing with drugs’’.

There would be local consultation, he added, with the drugs task forces and communities.

“Beyond that, we need to look at the broader extent of facilities available to those communities which are grossly inadequate in many respects,’’ he added.

Mr Kenny said community leaders should be able to work with young people, families and children to give them a sense of what an investment in communities could deliver for them.

He said he wanted to assure people that despite “murderous activities and attempted killings’’ the Government and public representatives stood with communities.

Labour leader Brendan Howlin said there were criminal gangs, some based in the country and others offshore, who "thrive like parasites on the deprivation and desperation of communities like this''.