Murder witness receives death threat

GARDAÍ are investigating a death threat against a taxi driver who witnessed the horrific murder of a notorious criminal.

Father-of-four Fran O’Neill sat beside convicted armed robber John Daly in his cab when a gunman shot dead the criminal.

The gangland murder happened in Finglas, north Dublin, after Mr O’Neill picked up Daly and friends in the city centre on October 22.

The 40-year-old received a threatening phone call late on Saturday night after he gave an interview to the Sunday World. The early edition of the paper comes out on Saturday night.

Mr O’Neill was scheduled to go on RTÉ’s Marian Finucane radio show on Sunday morning. The broadcaster said the taximan was not coming on because he had received a death threat.

He was due to talk about a letter he received from a financial institution which gave him a loan for his taxi, informing him he had seven days to decide how he was going to repay an outstanding debt of €5,400.

Gardaí said Mr O’Neill had received a call threatening his life and gardaí in Finglas Garda Station were investigating the matter.

Tommy Gorman of the National Taxi Drivers Union, who has been assisting Mr O’Neill, said he was traumatised by the call, compounding the stress caused by the letter he received from financing firm GE Money days before.

He said Mr O’Neill had not been offered counselling and that no one from the Government had even contacted him.

“The Government have disowned him, they have not done anything for him. He was an innocent person caught up in this,” said Mr Gorman.