Violence and crime - Turning a blind eye won’t work

AS the countdown to what will be the defining budget of the next decade continues apace, as we waver between the hope that a better-late-than-never dose of reality might save us from bankruptcy and the fear that the cure might be too much to bear, we may have not noticed how very violent and crime-ridden our society has become in a relatively short time.

Last weekend, in Holland, the dismembered body of drug dealer and informant Keith Ennis was found in a suitcase in an Amsterdam canal.

Even by the off-the-radar standards of drug gangs that savagery would cause most anyone a pause for thought.

Just hours later uncut heroin valued at up to €€8 million was seized in north Dublin as part of an investigation into one of the capital’s biggest drug gangs. Gardaí believe the men arrested on foot of the seizure work for a gang whose leader has been missing presumed dead for a number of months. The gang boss is believed to have been killed by criminals who owed him money.

In one of the more surreal gangland deaths Philip Collopy, one of Limerick’s leading criminals, accidentally killed himself while showing friends how to use a handgun.

In a macabre twist the fatal accident was captured on camera by one of Collopy’s students.

Drug gangs are not the only cause for concern as the three terrorist murders in the North recently have reminded us. Though these killings were met with widespread and heartfelt outrage they represent a real threat to the stability this island enjoyed in the last decade.

We were reminded of this as late as Sunday when two men and a woman arrested in Dublin in connection with an investigation into dissident republican groups. Components for five pipe bombs were discovered during a raid on a Phibsboro flat. Gardaí have linked the deadly devices with the Continuity IRA.

Whatever hope we have of reversing our economic collapse through the April 7 penance budget any resumption of terrorist violence will make that recovery even more illusive. Terrorists are not the only worry for the North. Already Mafia-style gangs exploiting the lack of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic are smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants, according to the North’s Serious Organised Crime Agency. Professional gangs are using the unobserved border to co-operate and expand trade in drugs, firearms, laundered fuel, counterfeit goods, money laundering, human trafficking and VAT fraud, according to the agency.

Because of these incidents and many, many more like them, it is hard to imagine that Ireland has a relatively low crime rate. Last year saw far fewer homicides and the number of murders decreased by more than one-third. But despite declines in the most serious crimes — involving violent death — other forms of major criminal activity have increased. Robbery, extortion, hijacking and attempted murder offences all rose last year, according to the Central Statistics Office.

The former Justice Minister Michael McDowell — and how grateful he must be today to his constituents for affording him the opportunity to retire from public life — once pointed to the linkage between a drug murder and recreational drug use.

Of course he was ridiculed largely because he was right. He is still right today and each of us who uses illegal drugs or buys contraband or smuggled cigarettes or fuel or supports dodgy “republican” collections in late night bars has a degree of responsibility for this everyday violence in our towns and cities and turning a blind eye won’t work.