Gun crime - It is time for State to put up a fight

Exactly how many more people have to be gunned down before the Government realises that the battle against serious crime is in danger of being totally lost?

The two brutal murders yesterday bring to 23 the total of such killings this year, and to 115 the number of gun deaths since the coalition of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats first came to power in 1997.

From a public perspective, there was not a deterrent of such severity in place as to prevent the double killing in north Dublin yesterday — it, and worse, could be replicated today or tomorrow.

The sheer awfulness of the shootings, and the casual way in which they were carried out, illustrates the contempt in which human life is held by those who operate outside the usual norms of society.

Another victim of indiscriminate lawlessness, Alan Cunniffe, was laid to rest yesterday. Colleagues in An Post observed two minutes’ silence for the postmaster who was shot dead in the streets of Kilkenny as he pursued a man who robbed his post office.

Even before he was buried, two more victims of another shooting — one entirely innocent — lay dead.

Such is the cold reality of living in Ireland today.

Totally innocent victims are given death sentences as they go about their daily work, stand outside their own door, or socialising at a party, by gunmen who believe themselves to be above the law and act as if they are.

Young and old are not exempt from the callousness and cold-bloodedness of these killers, and whose only misfortune has been to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, earlier this year, defended the Government’s indefensible record on gangland crime, and Justice Minister Michael McDowell made much of a gun amnesty which he knows, like everybody else in the country, will make not a whit of difference to serious criminality.

Two years ago, Mr McDowell made his facetious remark that a gangland murder was “the last sting of a dying wasp”, and in the interim realised he was wrong. He has been proved utterly and foolishly wrong.

Serious violent crime is not confined to Dublin — it can, and does, affect other parts of the country, some to a notorious degree.

When a drugs seizure is made, sophisticated, automatic guns are usually found also and while pubic confidence is somewhat assuaged, there is an acceptance that that is only the tip of the iceberg.

While the Minister for Justice is the public face of law enforcement, it would not be fair to blame him entirely for the this level of serious lawlessness that has taken root in this country.

What is needed is a concerted effort in the justice system as a whole, to begin to come to terms with it, and this involves giving the gardaí the resources, especially the manpower, they need.

It is futile to make serious crime a political football. There have been sufficient warnings from senior people within the force, and even from the Criminal Assets Bureau, to indicate that this country would witness the emergence of such serious criminality.

The time for complacency is over.