Let-up in fight against gangs could see Limerick ‘back to the bad old days’
“Limerick has a systemic problem in relation to gangland activity,” he said, pressing for the city to be “a special when it comes to the retention of specialist garda resources”.
“There are links with the criminal underworld in Dublin and given the links that have existed over the years, you can’t allow a situation to develop in Limerick where An Garda Síochána are going to have potentially a diminution in their support and in their resources to deal with the situation.”
His claims came as, for a second week running, a joint policing committee in Limerick heard a new teenage drugs gang was emerging in the Moyross area.
Mr Collins said: “If there is a let-up I would be worried we would be back to the situation we had a number of years ago.
“We have the situation now under control and we want to keep it under control and not let any slippage develop and bring us back to the bad old days. Limerick is a special case,” the TD said.
He raised his concerns yesterday at a meeting of the Co Limerick special policing committee (SPC).
His concerns arose from media reports of new gangland crime in the Moyross area.
He was told by Chief Supt David Sheahan, head of the Limerick Garda Division, there had been an “increase in activity” in the city, and in particular in Moyross, over a number of weeks.
Chief Supt Sheahan said: “We are actively patrolling and monitoring the situation on a daily basis, to see if we can get to the nub of it.”
Sinn Féin councillor Maurice Quinlivan had claimed at a recent meeting of the Limerick City SPC a power struggle for control of the drugs trade in Moyross had led to a new violent gang made up teenagers with access to weapons.
Questioned about the issue yesterday in Limerick, Michael Noonan, the finance minister, said he had been told by Chief Supt Sheahan that crime levels in the city had dropped dramatically and were way below historic experiences and things were going extremely well.
He said if Chief Supt Sheahan had a problem, he should contact him and he would discuss it with him.
Mr Noonan said: “I think the chief superintendent should get all the resources necessary to police the city properly. Limerick was a special case. It’s coming back now to a position where it is more or less like any other city in terms of crime levels, and statistically the levels of crime are below the other cities in the country. Now having half solved the problem, or fully solved the problem, we want it to maintain that way. We don’t want it to swing back up again.”
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