Pubdate: Sun, 28 Oct 2007
Source: Sunday Independent (Ireland)
Copyright: 2007 Independent Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.independent.ie/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/434
Author: Jim Cusack

INEFFICIENCY AND LACK OF VISION MEAN GANG DEATHS GO UNSOLVED

The very public execution of John Daly last week brings  the murder
toll relating to gangs in Finglas to 49 --  and all but a handful
remain unsolved.

One of the most frequent sights on RTE's recent news  coverage is of
its crime correspondent, Paul Reynolds,  standing in a suburban
working-class estate reporting  details of the latest gangland slaying
in Dublin.

Paul is by now familiar with the route from Montrose or  his home to
Ratoath Drive or Cloonlara Drive in  Finglas, where the latest victim
met his end.  Increasingly, Paul's reports end with the observation
that, given the Garda track record, there is little  prospect of the
latest murder being solved.

He is absolutely correct. A tally of gangland killings  in or
emanating from gangs in Finglas over the past  decade shows that there
were 49 murders, only three of  which have gone to court. Figures
released by the  gardai a few weeks ago give a total of around 240
unsolved murders in the same period, most of them gun  killings.

If it wasn't for the fact that John Daly previously  made national
headlines by phoning Joe Duffy on  Liveline from his cell in
Portlaoise prison, his death  would have barely merited more than a
few lines on RTE  and inside-page reports in newspapers.

Daly's murder had been widely predicted since his  release from prison
only a few months ago. The entire  criminal fraternity was angry with
him for bringing  attention to the use of mobile phones by prisoners,
and  the ensuing big sweep which led to almost 2,000 being  seized
from inmates. He was a particularly dumb  criminal with a knack for
making enemies both within  and outside prison.

One of the main suspects in his murder -- a Dublin  detective quipped
last week that they had narrowed the  list down to "around 2,000
suspects" -- is the current  drug boss in Finglas, a 27-year-old who
rose to  prominence this year following the murder of gang  leader
Martin "Marlo" Hyland last December.

Finglas, along with several other working-class areas  of Dublin and
Limerick, has been on a downward spiral  of gang violence since the
mid-1990s. Gang bosses are  assuming power younger and also dying
younger than ever  before. They are so young and inconsequential that
they  no longer even merit newspaper nicknames.

The criminal assets legislation introduced after the  murder of
journalist Veronica Guerin has meant that  they can't enjoy splashing
out and profile building  with the cash they are amassing from drug
sales. They  live in anonymous suburbs, often a bit away from their
home turf, in modest private developments on the  outskirts of the
city and holiday in Spain -- where  they might own nondescript "villas".

Ten years ago it would have been unheard of for someone  to claim to
be a "crime boss" at the age of 27. The  Penguins, Generals and Monks
of that era were  substantial figures who spent their money in style,
seeking social advancement and paying for private  education for their
children so they wouldn't suffer  the social deprivation and lack of
schooling their  parents had endured.

Finglas's first major drug gang was led by Peter Judge,  who was 41
when he was shot dead by the IRA as he sat  in his car outside the
Royal Oak pub on December 7,  1996. Judge had earned himself the
newspaper soubriquet  "Psycho" due to his gruesome murder of a local
small-time criminal, Jock Corbally, over a small debt.

In that period, post the first ceasefire in the North,  the IRA
leadership had decided to keep its volunteers  busy by ordering the
execution of known drug dealers in  Dublin and Belfast. Around 30 were
assassinated --  including at least five in Finglas, where they also
murdered the main heroin supplier, Joseph Foran, in  February 2000.
The policy was politically motivated. It  made the IRA and its rising
political wing, Sinn Fein,  popular in working-class areas like
Finglas beset by  drugs and crime. The subsequent election successes
with  two TDs and 13 Sinn Fein councillors in Dublin was due,  in
part, to this policy.

However, the IRA murder spree had side effects that  were to change
and worsen organised crime in Dublin.  The disruption of the main
gangs led by older, wiser  criminals paved the way for the emergence
of younger  and wilder gangs.

It also led to the complete corruption of the IRA  itself, whose
Dublin members began selectively killing  some dealers and taking
protection money from others.  Some men who had been in the Concerned
Parents Against  Drugs (CPAD) marches were now hand-in-glove with the
drug traffickers. Recently, some former CPAD members  have actually
become traffickers. The public awareness  and disgust over this
decline into drug dealing by IRA  figures in Dublin partly explains
Sinn Fein's recent  decline in popularity.

Following the executions of Judge and Foran and a  number of their
associates in Finglas, the way was open  for the rise of Shane Coates
and Stephen Sugg and their  gang, known as "The Westies". Coates and
Sugg had been  in the Garda's sights since their teenage years as a
pair of wild young thieves who had aspirations and a  taste for violence.

Their first move up the drug-dealing tree was to  murder 43-year-old
dealer Pascal Boland, whom they shot  dead at his home in Mulhuddart
in January 2002. They  became bigger and bolder, at one point
controlling  almost half the heroin supply in Dublin. When they were
cornered in a shoot-out with gardai in Co Meath at the  end of 2003
and had to flee the country, Dublin  experienced one of the worst
heroin droughts in years.  Garda attrition wore the Westies down and
the gang  disintegrated. Coates, 31, and Sugg, still only 27, were
eventually deposed. Their escape to Spain was not  enough to save
them. Their bodies were found buried  under a concrete slab in January
2004.

The murders of Sugg and Coates brought another round of  bloodletting
as a number of gangs vied for supremacy in  Finglas. Around 20 murders
have taken place in or  around Finglas since their deaths, including
another in  Spain. No single big gang has emerged in the area  since;
rather, three medium-sized gangs: one a gang of  ATM robbers led by
the 27-year-old suspected of  murdering John Daly; and the other led
by Marlo Hyland  until his murder last December along with the
innocent  20-year-old apprentice plumber, Anthony Campbell.

According to local sources, there is an inherent  instability in the
current situation. Hyland's gang has  broken up and had to make way
for the other two,  currently major gangs, but the gangland scene in
Finglas and its neighbouring working-class suburbs from  Coolock to
Blanchardstown is dangerously fractured.  Alliances have been formed
by gang leaders during time  spent in prison, with outside gangs
including those  from Limerick, who have brought their own brand of
madness to the Dublin scene.

The murder of John Daly has yet again highlighted the  inefficiencies
and lack of vision in tackling crime  here.

There are fewer gardai working in the "K" district --  which covers
Finglas, Blanchardstown and Cabra -- than  there were 20 years ago.
The "K" is only one troubled  part of the Dublin Metropolitan Region
(DMR) West,  which stretches from Coolock and Blanchardstown in the
north and north-west to Ballyfermot in the south and as  far out as
Rathcoole in the west. This division has  only one chief
superintendent, the recently appointed  John Twomey, one detective
superintendent, Hubert  Collins and one uniformed superintendent, Hugh
  Hartnett.

Most of the unsolved murders in this State -- including  the 49 in the
"K" district alone -- are in DMR West.  Yet, rural divisions like
Carlow/Kildare or Tipperary,  which have no organised crime, have
exactly the same  management structures and roughly similar numbers of
  gardai.

The Garda Reserve, an outfit which has no function in  detecting or
even dealing with crime, let alone serious  crime, has only 170
volunteers -- yet it, too, has a  chief superintendent, superintendent
and other  middle-ranking gardai to run it.

DMR West is, according to detectives, utterly  overwhelmed. Yet it
continues to be treated as though  it were a rural backwater in terms
of resources. One  local detective recently discovered that there are
as  many detectives in Longford as there are in any of the  DMR West
stations.

Following yet another spate of gangland murders two  years ago,
Commissioner Noel Conroy appointed an  additional 50 gardai to
detective duties based in  Harcourt Square, specifically to target
gangland  violence.

The "Nifty Fifty", as they are nicknamed, have been  working
tirelessly, gathering intelligence, carrying  out surveillance and
have had remarkable success given  that most are young and relatively
inexperienced in  detective work. But colleagues say these young crime
  fighters are becoming increasingly disillusioned at  their growing
realisation that, if they had opted for  safer, uncomplicated duties
not involving crime  detection, they would stand a much better chance
of  career enhancement.

As one pointed out: "These are great young gardai, but  if they got
themselves office jobs they would be better  off. They see people who
sit on their arses all day  getting jobs. The fellow who stops people
for tax and  insurance is likely to be promoted more quickly."

The killing in DMR West will continue. As well as  criminals killing
criminals, innocent people are dying,  such as Anthony Campbell, Eddie
Ward (shot dead while  fixing a car for criminal Brian Downes two
weeks ago),  Donna Cleary (shot dead at a party in Coolock in March
last year) and Baiba Saulite (shot dead last November  by Marlo
Hyland's mob).

It's no coincidence they all were murdered by criminals  from DMR
West.
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MAP posted-by: Derek