Taoiseach to visit inner city affected by deadly gangland feud
Government sources said last night that the visit to areas where families and communities are living under siege will definitely take place and will now likely be next week.
Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan has asked Mr Kenny to visit that part of the capital and walk in the shoes of those afflicted by violence.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald yesterday revealed that tens of millions of euro will now be put into resourcing gardaí in a bid to break up the deadly feud between the Hutch and Kinahan gangs.
Ms Fitzgerald said the money is being made available out of the €41.9m garda overtime budget in an effort to combat the “unprecedented violence”.
She said she was in touch with the Department of Public Expenditure about the demands facing gardaí, ahead of the estimates for departments being decided in the coming weeks “What I have done and the Taoiseach has done when we met the commissioner, is we said ‘you have to use whatever resources you need’. There is obviously going to be a budget for that. We have said to the garda commissioner, it is absolutely clear you will need to use extensive overtime. It is going to run into tens of millions and we will have to provide for that.”
The minister also said she is willing to look at an exemption for gardaí retiring so that they could stay on, but added: “That’s a possibility, but that has huge implications across the public sector. The idea of selecting out a particular group that would stay on past retirement is fraught with challenges from a public sector point of view.”
Meanwhile, Independent Dublin TD Maureen O’Sullivan used Leaders’ Questions to highlight how drugs and violence are affecting her constituency.
In a candid speech, Ms O’Sullivan asked Mr Kenny to “get inside the skin of somebody” living in the inner city, adding: “He looks out the window and there is nobody on the street, yet, within two to three minutes, anything from 30 to 60 people are there because the word has gone around that drugs will be available for sale. He could be sitting at home in his flat or walking down the street, maybe going for the messages or meeting neighbours, or he could have gone to the pub for a drink, and, suddenly, shots ring out and somebody is gunned down and executed in front of him.
“He could have a son or daughter, or a brother or sister, who got caught up in addiction and owes a massive amount of money to the dealers, and he gets a knock on the door and is told to either pay up or else do a deed, commit a murder or set somebody up for murder, or worse consequences will happen to him.”
