Firearms found in killers' burned-out car

Firearms were found in a burned-out getaway car used by the killers of two men in south Dublin last night, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said today.

The two victims, aged 26 and 30, were shot in the head in a cul de sac in the Carrigwood Estate in Firhouse at 10pm last night.

Mr McDowell also said that a Northern Ireland-registered BMW vehicle, which was found abandoned and burned out in the nearby Glenvara Park estate, was sourced across the Border last Thursday.

“My understanding is that the car in question was sourced in Northern Ireland last Thursday and that firearms may have been found in the burned-out remains of the car,” Mr McDowell said in Dublin today.

“They may of course be the firearms that were used in this incident, I’m not sure about that.”

Gardaí were today investigating links between the double murder and a bitter gangland drugs feud which has claimed six lives since 2001.

“The overall picture is that this was a very careful, cold and ruthless trap set for two people in a rival gang,” the minister said.

Mr McDowell, who was speaking before the launch of a new National Crime Victims’ Helpline, said it was too early to speculate on any possible paramilitary involvement.

“It’s too early to talk about that. There have been cars in other serious crimes that have been sourced in Northern Ireland through linkages that don’t exist at a paramilitary level.”

The minister said that a brutal feud involving two rival drugs gangs been under very heavy garda surveillance recently.

Rejecting claims of an upsurge in gangland crime, he said that the Garda’s Operation Anvil had seized over 150 firearms and was getting record resources.

“All I can say is the gardai are putting every resource possible into cracking open the gangs behind this feud and preventing them from doing anymore damage,” he said.

The Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis was today carrying out preliminary post mortems at the scene of shootings, which has been sealed off pending examination.

When the men stopped their car at the roadside, the armed attackers jumped from their vehicle and shot the two men at point-blank range as they sat in the front seats.

“They are people who are completely amoral,” added Mr McDowell of Dublin’s drugs gangs.

“They deal in death. Their coinage is death. They don’t care if they kill people through dealing hard drugs or soft drugs because it all means large sums of money.

“They use death to enforce debt collection operations and they use death in order to knock out rivals in this lethal business. Nobody should be uner any illusions that drugs lead directly to this.”

Mr McDowell also referred to yesterday’s comments by Limerick’s State Solicitor that intimidation of witnesses was collapsing criminal justice trials.

Michael Murray said that two cases had collapsed within a week of each other when key witnesses told the courts that they could no longer remember details of crimes they had witnessed.

Mr McDowell said new legislation would make the original garda statements of witnesses admissible as evidence if they failed to corroborate them in court.