Members of public witness knife attack on busy city street

PEOPLE watched in horror yesterday as a man was stabbed on a busy city street.

The vicious attack happened outside the Limerick’s general post office in Lower Cecil Street at around 2pm.

The victim who is in his late teens and from the Corbally area of the city received two knife wounds to the face and upper arm.

He was rushed to the Mid-Western Regional Office, where his injuries were said not to be life threatening.

The man who was attacked is known to gardaí, but the incident is believed not to be feud related.

As the hunt for the culprit continued yesterday evening, gardaí were viewing CCTV footage obtained from the post office building and other business premises in Lower Cecil Street.

It was also revealed yesterday that due to a heroin upsurge in the southside of Limerick, a drugs unit has been formed at Roxboro Road garda station.

Those assigned to drugs duty are uniformed members who will work in plain clothes.

Supt Frank O’Brien said the new unit has been put in place to tackle heroin use which he said is a major “driver” of crime.

He said: “The gardaí on this duty are being deployed and will work closely with the divisional drugs unit in Henry street and this is being done in response to the special needs of the area. They have been withdrawn from other duties and are working solely in combating drugs. This is a situation we have to constantly keep under review.”

Supt O’Brien said he had also increased the number of community gardaí in the southside of the city to 22 — two sergeants and 20 gardaí.

He said: “This is part of our strategy of bringing policing to the people and putting gardaí into the communities who people can relate to. Unfortunately this area had been eroded over the years. But we are now building relationships with the communities so that they can have confidence in the gardaí.”