How weigh-in murder at Regency changed the way gardaí fight gangs

THE Regency hotel murder of David Byrne during a boxing weigh-in in February 2016 led to an escalation in Garda plans to overhaul their methods for dealing with the drugs-related gangland feuds in the capital and elsewhere.

The previous March, Garda authorities set up the National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau (DOC-B), from an amalgamation of two units looking after those key areas.

The move made sense as it resulted in a more streamlined response operationally and ended the inter-unit rivalry that had flared up on occasion in the past as the two groups of detectives inevitably crossed paths while pursuing similar goals in the fight against gang crime. Similar efforts were being made in securing an overall command on the armed units.

This culminated in the creation of the ASUs (Armed Support Units) and produced an unprecedented number of armed patrols on the streets of Dublin, particularly in the inner city heartlands of the main participants in the Kinahan-Hutch feud, which has accounted for most of the victims of the past three years.

Increased surveillance, with the aid of technological advances and improved intelligence, thanks to a combination of saturation patrolling and infiltration of criminals on the periphery of the feuding rivals, were also key factors in reducing the spiral of bloodshed that marked 2016 and 2017.

The flow of information to gardaí was responsible for a record number of warnings to potential targets that they could be next on the list of victims.

Assistant Garda Commissioner Pat Leahy, who is the policing supremo in Dublin, told a joint policing committee last month that 522 people had been issued with active warnings by gardaí that their lives were in danger. He described 11 of those named on the threat list as being in critical danger.

Ten of the top 11 live in Dublin’s north central district, which at one stage was in danger of being turned into the capital’s “killings fields” before the Garda regained control of the streets. The rest of the threats were ranked as either moderate or low.

The big problem for gardaí in dealing with the KinahanHutch murders is that almost all of the participants know each other as they were once all part of one big outfit, which imploded over money issues.

And, as Mr Leahy pointed out, there are also two other deadly feuds ongoing in the Ballymun and Finglas areas and they also account for a substantial portion of Garda time and money.

Gardaí estimate that more than 50 lives, 49 in the greater Dublin area and

Our efforts to tackle organised crime will be unrelenting

one in Co Wexford, have been saved following Garda intervention.

Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll, who is in charge of special crime operations, has pledged that the crackdown on the gangs will continue to be given top priority throughout 2018.

“We are continuing to have successes at home and abroad,” he said.

“Our efforts to tackle organised crime and investigate incidents related to it will be unrelenting.”

DOC-B has seized more than 80 firearms, including more than 40 handguns, eight machine guns, seven assault and two other rifles and 10 stun guns.

However, as the KinahanHutch murders have shown, organised crime gangs are unpredictable.

And despite heavy policing on the streets and steady streams of information and intelligence, it remains very difficult to determine where the next flare-up will occur.

As one senior officer said: “We can’t talk with utmost confidence about the future of the gangs, but we can continue to hit them with every weapon at our disposal, including in the pocket, and turn the odds against them.”