Call for Dáil debate after spate of violent deaths

AS gardaí investigate three violent deaths in Kerry, Dublin and Tipperary, a call has been made on the Government to hold an emergency debate on spiralling lawlessness.

Violent murders have left Irish streets like those of Al Capone’s Chicago, Labour’s Joan Burton claimed yesterday.

Attacking the Government’s failure to successfully tackle gang crime, Ms Burton told the Dáil there has been an “unprecedented spate of murders on the fringes of the west and north sides of Dublin resulting in a significant loss of human life”.

“People are being gunned down in ways that are reminiscent of Al Capone’s days in Chicago. The public living in these areas, including in my constituency, feel helpless,” the Dublin West TD said.

It was time, she said, for the Dáil to hold an emergency debate on gangland crime.

The latest brutal killing was that of 17-year-old Stephen Lyne of Castle Falls Estate, Ross Road, Killarney, who was found with what is believed to be fatal stab wounds at 1.30am yesterday, about 300 yards from his home and less than half a mile from the centre of Killarney town.

A fourth-year student in Killarney Community College, he had been in the town with friends on Wednesday night.

Gardaí were yesterday scrutinising CCTV cameras as they try to piece together his movements in the hours before his death.

He was one of five children of landscape gardener Denis Lyne and his Dutch-born wife, Lotte. The Lynes are a well respected Killarney family.

In Dublin, gardaí are focusing their attention on associates of drug dealer Tommy Joyce, who was gunned down on Wednesday. The 20-year-old Traveller was shot dead at the halting site where he lived with his extended family near Darndale, north Dublin.

Gardaí believe the killing may be linked to that of drug supplier John ‘BJ’ Clarke last month.

Recently, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) seized two cars, worth in the region of €100,000 from Joyce. The bureau reported he had amassed considerable wealth, despite not working.

Meanwhile, in Templemore, Co Tipperary, detectives are continuing to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a horse trader in the town on Wednesday night.

The man, named locally as James McInerney Snr, 56, died following an altercation at a house in Lacey Avenue at around 10.40pm.

A 22-year-old man was arrested in connection with the incident.