McDowell denies complacency over gangland crime

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell tonight denied he was complacent over gangland crime following the death of a Dublin drug dealer shot in his front garden.

The Labour Party earlier called for a high-powered Veronica Guerin-style clampdown to tackle spiralling crime after Dublin drug dealer Mark Glennon, 32, was shot four times outside his Blanchardstown home yesterday.

Labour claimed only one in six crimes were solved and the 13 murders so far this year looked like they would top 2003’s total of 20.

The party’s justice spokesman Joe Costello said lawlessness of this scale was a threat to public safety and democracy and accused the minister of being complacent.

But Mr McDowell said gardai were well-resourced and had already made a number of significant developments to fight gang-related crime.

“First of all the gardaí in west Co Dublin and Dublin generally are operating under the aegis of Operation Anvil and this is an operation which is highly-resourced, unprecedented resources being put into the threat of gangland crime in the Dublin area.

“Never has any Government put as many resources into this area and I have given the Garda Commissioner every single item of support that he has asked for,” he told RTÉ Radio.

“There have been a lot of concrete results already, a great number of firearms have been seized, a huge number of arrests and searches have been made.

“There have been spectacular successes on many fronts in relation to cracking open the drugs trade in Dublin.”

Mr McDowell said there were also an increasing number of gardai and they were working closely with police officers in Spain, the UK and the Netherlands to make sure drug dealers didn’t exploit borders to avoid justice.

But he said the current problem centred around two rival groups who would stop at nothing to wipe each other out and seize control of the Dublin narcotics trade.

“The gardaí have now for a number of weeks been aware of this mutual rivalry and the intention to create a bloodbath, and they have been taking every step that they can to counter it and I’ve given them every support.

“In west Co Dublin there has never been as much Garda activity, there have never been as many resources and I have given Commissioner Conroy every last cent that he’s asked for in order to pay for this elevated and very serious Garda operation targeted at this serious threat to the lives of ordinary people,” he said.