THREE SUSPECTS arrested for questioning about the shooting of a man that has left him in a permanent vegetative state have been released without charge from Garda custody.
The men were being questioned about an attack on Dubliner Robert Delany (29), during which he was hit in the face with pellets from a shotgun blast.
The father of two has been left with no brain function. He has been in a permanent vegetative state in hospital since he was attacked in October 2008, and his family have been told he has no hope of recovery.
Mr Delany was never involved in crime. Gardaí believe he 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 Monday morning. 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.
Gardaí believe the former IRA member and the two younger men conspired to have Mr Delany shot, and paid two criminals from Finglas, Dublin, to carry it out.
The man believed to have shot Mr Delany was Daniel Gaynor (25) from Finglas. A known gangland criminal and gunman for hire, 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.
The three men arrested on Monday were detained at Tallaght and Rathfarnham Garda stations under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, but were released late on Monday night.
The Garda investigation is continuing, and a file on the shooting is being prepared for the DPP. Monday’s arrests brought to nine the number of people questioned about the shooting.