Take the gun out of Ireland
One of the conclusions of the Barr Tribunal into the shooting at Abbeylara is that the arrival of the ERU on the crime scene was more of a liability than an asset. Their deployment was not even requested by the garda officer in charge. John Carthy's psychiatrist, Dr David Shanley, appeared to be more than capable of defusing the Abbeylara incident without any loss of life and the absence of firearms.
The number of firearm offences, both possession and discharging, increased from 450 to 600 in 2001 in the Dublin metropolitan area it was up by 84%. As Labour's Joe Costello correctly reiterates, 300 serious crimes are being committed every day in this country. How in God's name will the minister's fight-fire-with-fire psychology address these appalling statistics?
