Top criminals ‘on holidays’ as gardaí crack down

DUBLIN’S major criminals have left the country for extended holidays and are unlikely to return until a multi million euro garda crackdown on crime is wound down, it was claimed last night.

Operation Anvil, a €6.5 million crackdown on gun and other serious crime is still ongoing, garda headquarters said in response to a report that it has been halted due to a lack of cash.

“Operation Anvil continues to operate,” a garda spokesman said. “There are no budgetary issues in relation to this operation and no ‘end date’ has been determined.”

The city has been swamped by gardaí, particularly in the first few weeks following the start of the operation in mid-May. More than 7,000 checkpoints have been thrown up around the city since then.

Garda headquarters said 244 people have been arrested on suspicion of various offences, including three questioned about murders, 63 over serious assaults and 120 about burglaries.

In addition, e1.6m in property was seized and 2,000 drug raids and searches carried out. Investigations are continuing following the arrests and seizures as are covert surveillance operations, the gardaí said.

Gardaí on the ground in west Dublin, where much of the force’s resources have been concentrated, said the operation has severely curtailed the activities of criminals in the city. There have, said one, been no murders in the west of the city since April and no cash in transit robberies since the operation began.

However, one west Dublin community activist said the major gang leader, and their lieutenants, have spent most of the last three months on extended holidays. Gerry Lynam, a former independent councillor from Mulhuddart, said he knows of no key player from his area facing charges since Operation Anvil started.

“They got the hell out of the country, closed up shop and disappeared. They will have worked out ‘x’ man hours for such and such a length of time and will be back when they are sure Anvil has been wound down,” Mr Lynam said.

“Ordinary people who have gone on holidays to Alicante have bumped in to them. Some may have come back for a couple of weeks but they have spent most of the time away on holiday.”

Mr Lynam believes Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s prior announcement that the operation was due to start was “one of the stupidest things” the activist has ever witnessed. “The lads were literally told ‘the guards are coming after you’... they might actually have caught some of these guys on the hop, but you told them it was going to happen.”

He added that communities across Dublin are crying out for a long-term policing plan involving much larger numbers of beat gardaí building trust and becoming embedded in communities.

Mr Lynam said this would lead to the greater ground level intelligence and the ability to respond more quickly to information received.

Labour’s justice spokesman Joe Costello said: “The gardaí cannot effectively combat gun crime if they have to function merely on a blitz basis for a few months of the year until the money for a particular operation runs out. We cannot continue to have a stop/go approach to taking on gangs.”