Crime and leadership - Lenihan must show he has resolve

YOU KNOW you are approaching the nadir in any cycle of crime or violence when someone demands the Army be called in “to tackle the problem head on”.

If the call is made by a politician it’s often just hysterical grandstanding that clouds the real issues and allows those really responsible off the hook.

If gun crime, gang crime or drug crime are becoming unmanageable it is usually for a few simple reasons — the most obvious of which is that the gardaí either can’t cope or don’t have the resources needed to do the job. It is never that they don’t want to do the job.