Gangland violence: Top-level intervention ‘can halt feud’

A top-level intervention group comprising community leaders, senior gardaí, and politicians should be set up to stop the gangland feud from escalating, a long-serving drug activist has said.

Susan Collins, who has run Addiction Response Crumlin for 20 years, said such a structure must deal with the wider issue of intimidation of communities by drug gangs.

Ms Collins, a near neighbour of murdered criminal David Byrne in Crumlin, south Dublin, said she feared it may be too late to stop the feud between the Kinahan and Hutch gangs.

“It’s a bit like Northern Ireland was,” she said. “Someone kills my family, and the only thing you can do is kill someone from theirs. That’s how you keep your credibility.”

A board member of Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign, Ms Collins called for more gardaí, including community police, and investment in drug and youth projects.

Her call came the day after Mr Byrne, a senior member of the Kinahan drug cartel, was buried and days before Eddie Hutch’s funeral.

Mr Hutch was shot dead at his home in Dublin’s north inner city last Monday week in suspected retaliation for the murder of Mr Byrne in the Regency Hotel the previous Friday.

It was confirmed yesterday that Mr Hutch will be buried this Friday at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean McDermott St.

Similar to Mr Byrne’s funeral, a massive Garda security operation will be put in place.

Ms Collins said she was worried that the feud could replicate the infamous Crumlin-Drimnagh feud which claimed the lives of more than 15 people between 2000 and 2012.

“I think it could get that dangerous and I hope no innocent people get killed in all this feuding again,” said Ms Collins. “I hope young men realise that when they get into these gangs that they may not get out.”

She was speaking at the launch of a report on gang intimidation, entitled ‘Demanding Money with Menace’, commissioned by Citywide.

Report author Johnny Connolly said that the State had “failed” in its responsibility to protect certain communities and urged a response by gardaí, the Department of Justice and the Policing Authority.

Citywide co-ordinator Anna Quigley said communities had been “abandoned”.

Ms Collins said there had to be an answer to the feuding: “It has to be about community empowerment. We need people with the will to drive it at senior garda level and also political level and include community groups, like Citywide.

“There’s no point having a conference, let’s have seven people sit around a table and thrash it out and see what we can come up with.”

She called for a mini-Criminal Asset Bureaus in local communities.