TWO MEN arrested in connection with the murder of father-of-two Roy Collins were still being questioned last night and could be held in custody for a further two days.
The suspects, who were arrested shortly after the shooting of Mr Collins last Thursday, were being detained under Section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows gardaí to hold them for up to seven days.
However, gardaí will have to go to court before lunchtime today if they wish to detain the men for the final 48-hour detention period allowed under the 2007 Act.
Sources indicated last night that gardaí could make this application at Limerick District Court this morning.
Results from forensic samples, seized as part of the massive inquiry, were still being awaited yesterday and so far the firearm used in the murder has not been recovered.
Gardaí believe Mr Collins was shot once in the chest with a 9mm Glock pistol and a postmortem revealed a large exit wound in his back.
Searches continued yesterday in the Rosbrien area of Limerick close to where the stolen black Mercedes Benz used by the gunmen was found partially burnt out.
It is believed the firearm may have been dumped in this area.
House-to-house inquiries also continued yesterday on the south side of the city as part of the investigation, which is being carried out by up to 100 gardaí from across the southern region.
Members of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation are also involved in the inquiry and Assistant Garda Commissioner Kevin Ludlow, who attended Mr Collins’s funeral yesterday, said progress in the inquiry was steady.
The assistant commissioner has vowed that gardaí would win the battle against criminal gangs and described the response of the public to date as “fantastic”.
Mr Collins, who was engaged to be married next June, was shot shortly after midday last Thursday, at his business premises The Coin Castle amusement arcade next door to the Steering Wheel pub owned by his father Steve at the Roxboro Shopping Centre. Gardaí suspect members of a criminal gang targeted the father of two in a revenge attack.
The dead man’s first cousin, Ryan Lee, gave evidence against Wayne Dundon who threatened to kill him in December 2004 when he refused to allow Dundon’s 14- year-old sister into Brannigan’s pub in Limerick. The pub is owned by the Collins family.
Ryan Lee was shot 30 minutes later by a lone gunman who entered the pub wearing a helmet.
Nobody has ever been charged with the shooting.
Dundon was subsequently convicted of threatening to kill Mr Lee and jailed for 10 years, but the Court of Criminal Appeal later reduced his sentence to seven years.
Mr Lee, who was adopted by the Collins family after his parents died when he was 13, helped carry Roy Collins’s coffin yesterday.