State needs to get its act together and put murder gangs behind bars

THE family of Anthony Campbell said it all. They do not expect the killers of the apprentice plumber to be brought to justice.

Depressing, isn’t it? Yet that is precisely what the majority of people in this country feel about the onslaught of serious crime which saw the death of a totally innocent man as he went about his daily work during the week.

Within hours of the Campbell family expressing what the rest of the country was thinking, another criminal was shot dead in the centre of Dublin.

Despite what the gardaí and the media said, Anthony Campbell was actually in the right place at the right time — the young man was in the house in Finglas to do the job he was supposed to do.

It was fortuitous that his boss wasn’t also there — otherwise there would have been a triple murder.

As it transpired, the country was shocked by the casual way in which Anthony Campbell was murdered. He didn’t know the guy asleep upstairs, Marlo Hyland, was notorious in the country’s drugs trade and the target of his rivals.

But that’s the way it is in Ireland at the moment.

You could be in a pub having a quiet drink not knowing that the next time the door opened, the price of the pint could be the last thing on your mind.

Literally.

That is not to say the country is akin to El Paso — it’s not.

But what can be said without fear of contradiction is that at the moment there is an element who live, and die, by the rule of the mob.

There are guns for hire and the sleazebags who fire them don’t care who gets in their way.

That was proven on more than one occasion this week. In Kilkenny, Alan Cunniffe was yet another victim of lawlessness.

He was shot to death because he was courageous enough to pursue a man who had just robbed his post office.

Here was another man who went to work that day and never came home.

Only the circumstances were different from what happened at Finglas, but what matters is that a totally innocent man is dead.

And they are not the only innocent dead or injured.

To be an innocent victim in this country all you have to be is ordinary and doing ordinary things — like going to work, chatting at your front door or even going to a party.

Age doesn’t matter because bullets discriminate no more than the man who pulls the trigger. So kids get shot, or burned, for no other reason than they were there. Yet the political wrangling goes on. The Government defends its record on crime in the face of opposition criticism that it is complacent. Still, nothing is done.

When was the last time you heard about zero tolerance? I think this phrase came into use back in the mid-’90s when John O’Donoghue was Minister for Justice — at least it was imported at that stage from America.

Around 1998 — and that’s only eight years ago — the gardaí were able to report good news generally on crime, with the exception of sexual offences, for the previous year.

There was a 10% drop, accompanied by the highest detection rate in 20 years. The highest increase in reported crime — an enormous 34% — occurred in, of all places, Templemore, and we know what that’s famous for.

Nationally, however, there was an almost 50% drop in robberies and burglaries using firearms.

Now, after a just a few years, there are armed gardaí patrolling Finglas and the Emergency Response Unit has been deployed to an area in Limerick.

The two murders in Dublin this week brought to 23 the number killed by guns this year, but it is not just about statistics.

Neither is it directly about the general election, although crime and law and order will be a major factor next summer.

What it’s about really is putting the gardaí on an equal playing pitch with the drug dealers because it is glaringly obvious they are not.

That is not to criticise the gardaí, but just to suggest that whatever obstacles are in their way right now should be minimised.

No matter what the Government says, I don’t believe for a moment the force is adequately resourced to combat this insidious problem.

FOR instance, the illicit drugs trade in this country is worth over €1 billion, while the garda budget is about €1.3 billion.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell totally disagrees with that opinion, insisting the gardaí have enough resources and that senior gardaí involved in fighting gangland crime have assured him resources are not an issue.

But then he also said gardaí were putting known criminals under “acute pressure” in order to restrict their movements and prevent further bloodshed.

On Wednesday night there was nothing to restrict criminals in the centre of Dublin or to prevent them from causing further bloodshed.

Apart altogether from the financial aspect, there is also the endless red tape the gardaí have to observe.

Finally, when they do arrest people for a drugs offence, the taxpayer will more than likely pay for their expensive lawyers through the legal aid system, despite the fact they are multimillionaires from their nefarious trade.

In addition to their contempt for human life, as witnessed by the double murders this week, their evil trade wrecks the lives of young and old.

This is not like an outbreak of measles that will eventually go away. This is something altogether more sinister. Minister McDowell saying something fatuous to the effect he doesn’t underestimate public alarm over shootings like this is not good enough.

It is long past the time when we as a society can remain complacent about it.

Expensive educational campaigns are all very well, but it’s going to take years for them to become effective — if ever — and in the meantime people are dying.

Michael McDowell is right about one thing: innocent individuals are obviously in danger from these serious criminals, and there are no quick-fix solutions.

What is needed, and he suggested it, is a concerted drive to use the systems and the resources of the law and the executive, legislative and judicial arms of the State against gangland crime.

When we were facing a threat from foot and mouth disease a few years ago, it was fought by putting restrictions in place which people readily observed for the financial wellbeing of the country.

Now we need something similar to combat a disease which threatens human life rather than cows.