Gangland murder victim had criminal past
A young man shot dead in a gangland attack had a history of involvement in crime and arson, it emerged today.
Terry Dunleavy, 26, was approached by a gunman while he was sitting in his car at the Croke Villas flats complex in north inner city Dublin at 10pm last night.
He attempted to flee but was chased by the gunman and shot five times in the head. The gunman escaped on a motorbike.
Gardaí were today carrying out house to house inquiries as part of the murder investigation. They have appealed for witnesses who saw anything suspicious around Croke Villas to contact the incident room at Fitzgibbon Street Garda station.
Officers confirmed that a motorbike and a car, which had been set on fire, were located near the scene.
A garda spokeswoman said they had been preserved for technical examination.
Dunleavy, from Annadale Crescent in Marino, was believed to have been involved in a number of recent shooting incidents and was well known to gardaí.
In 1997, he was charged in connection with an arson attack on a Dublin secondary school which caused €300,000 worth of damage.
In 2002, he went on trial at the Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin accused of shooting a man in the leg and possessing a firearm unlawfully.
Dunleavy was taken to the Mater Hospital after the shooting but died a short time later from his injuries. A post mortem examination on his body will take place later today.
The Croke Villas flats where the shooting took place are to be demolished next year as part of a scheme to regenerate the area.
They were opened in the 1960s by Princess Grace of Monaco and her husband Prince Rainier.
Independent TD Tony Gregory, who lives nearby in Ballybough Road, said the Gardaí needed to gather intelligence on who was responsible for the wave of gangland attacks.
“Most people in the area would be concerned about the shooting but they would be more concerned about the number of people being shot dead and nobody being apprehended. It means the people who are doing the shooting think they can get away with shooting virtually anyone.”
Dunleavy is the third man to be killed in a gangland-style shooting in Dublin in the last two weeks.
Joseph Rafferty, 29, was shot twice by a lone gunman as he left his apartment in the Ongar Park housing estate near Clonsilla at around 9.15am on Tuesday last.
A martial arts champion, Jimmy Curran, 42, was also shot as he drank in the Green Lizard pub on Francis Street in the south inner city on Sunday week last.
Fine Gael said there was growing evidence that a system of assassins-for-hire was taking root in the criminal underworld.
“The last couple of weeks have seen shocking number of murders, which have overshadowed Justice Minister Michael McDowell’s attempt to suggest that serious crime has fallen,” said justice spokesman Jim O’Keefe TD.
“In terms of homicides, particularly those involving the use of guns, it would appear that Ireland is returning to the bad old days of the early 1990s when criminals were literally allowed to get away with murder.”
