`The bullet came across the road. It landed by the TV.'

Nine-year-old Sandra Tyndall had just put on the television and started watching Rugrats when the bullet sailed into her livingroom. Fired from across the road, it passed over the rush-hour traffic on Cork Street, between the railings of a high steel fence and through the glass-pane of the front door before coming to rest by the television.

Alan Byrne (27) wasn't so lucky. That bullet missed, but at least three other shots were fired into his back and legs. He fell to the ground half-way down Vauxhall Avenue, a dingy shortcut that leads from his home in Rosary Road to Cork Street. It was shortly before 8 a.m. when Byrne, a key witness in the Josie Dwyer manslaughter trial, was about to take the bus to his work in Tallaght. A man wearing a bright yellow fluorescent jacket and a builder's yellow safety hat approached him. The disguise was clearly meant to chime with the safety apparel worn by roadworkers nearby.

The lone gunman, of stocky build and 5 ft 2 in to 5 ft 4in in height, opened fire at short range. Just then Sandra's mother, Jane, was leaving another daughter to the bus-stop.

"At first I thought someone was throwing stones. Then I saw the man lying on the ground, and another man over him. He was drowsy, but able to talk. He kept asking `where is the ambulance, where is the ambulance'."

Mrs Tyndall returned to her house to ring the Garda and found two of her children cowering by the sofa. "We'd just switched on the telly when there was a bang. We were too scared to move," said Sandra. Two more sisters were asleep upstairs.

"The shock is only sinking in now. My children could have been killed, in their own front room. Someone must be praying to St Rita for us."

The gunman doubled back and fled the scene on foot through the Maryland estate, gardai said later. Earlier reports that he used a motorcycle were discounted. A short time later, an ambulance came to take Mr Byrne to the nearby St James's Hospital, where he was being treated for his injuries.

As gardai cordoned off the alleyway where the victim was shot, word spread quickly about his identity. Mr Byrne was well-known in the area, having been with Josie Dwyer on the night in May 1996 when Mr Dwyer was killed. Dwyer, a drug user and small-time dealer suffering from AIDS, was chased and attacked after an anti-drugs meeting and beaten to death.

Mr Byrne was injured in the attack, which took place near Basin Street flats. Twelve local men have been charged in connection with the manslaughter of Mr Dwyer, but the case has dragged on for almost three years.

Locals yesterday described Mr Byrne as a decent man but declined to be specific or to allow themselves be identified. Within an hour, the traffic was back to normal and only the bullet-hole in the Tyndalls' front-door served as a reminder of another inner-city shooting.