Joe Costello calls for international policing response to latest feud shootings
The killing this morning of Gareth Hutch is both a human tragedy and a shocking reflection on the ineffectiveness of law and order in the North Inner City. It brings to five the number of revenge attacks on the Hutch family for the shooting dead of a member of the Kinahan gang in the Regency Hotel in February, 2016. Four of the five killings have taken place within a few hundred yards of each other: from Ballybough through Summerhill to Sheriff Street to Avondale House. The North Inner City has now become a murder triangle in a deadly gangland feud.
It is outrageous that such mafia style killings should be taking place in such a small close-knit and highly populated community. The area is full of schools and creches. Indeed the latest killing took place only yards from Larkin Community College, a second-level school with hundreds of pupils. The Gardaí do not appear to have the wherewithal to prevent the killings or to arrest the culprits and put them behind bars.
With one of the gangs based abroad, there is a strong international dimension to this deadly feud which has been fuelled and funded by drugs imported from abroad. The Gardaí should urgently call in Europol to help track down those responsible for the recent killings.
The people of the North Inner City are entitled to the full protection of the State and should not have to go about their business in fear for their own safety and that of their family’s.
Finally, there is need for urgent mediation to prevent further tit-for-tat gangland killings.
Contact Joe Costello (087) 2450777