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Limerick Crime

Ned_led16

I am disgusted to hear this:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0326/limerick.html

What is going wrong with the law when this kind of thing is tolerated!
How can it be stopped?

Maybe is it a Political issue? Surely the Gardai should be given immense power to combat this? But the message is loud and clear at the moment if you testify you must leave the country!
criminals have won and beaten the Law!

I dont agree with the American way but in LA im sure the cops would just shoot and kill this type of criminal and do it in a way that it was claimed self defence but set up! thats obviously not the right way but we have a gross miscarriage of justice here.

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benway

Ned_led16 wrote: »

Surely the Gardai should be given immense power to combat this?

The Gardaí already have more than sufficient powers. As it happens, Mr Collins was used by Fianna Fáil as a figurehead for the rushing through of the Criminal Justice (Amendment) Act, 2009 - a piece of populist grandstanding, so well considered that there have been precisely zero prosecutions to date under it. Personally, I think he was treated very shabbily at the time, pretty sure he gave an interview to that effect in the past six months or so.

It's very unfortunate that he's left the country, although I wouldn't blame him, given how he's been treated.

Ned_led16

What were dealing with here is the mob! This is the Irish and English Mafia! I suppose its impossible to bring them down! Just sad that the criminal has prevailed over the law! They are above and beyond the law - we all know that!
If you testify against them you leave the country!

benway

Gonna start taxing you on those exclamation marks

Ned_led16 wrote: »

If you testify against them you leave the country!

Not necessarily, a couple of insiders have given evidence against the Limerick gangs, afaik both are still in Limerick.

I'm not sure that Mr. Collins left because of an immanent threat from the gangs - in so far as I'm aware, the McCarthy-Dundon faction has effectively been broken up.

I can fully sympathise that he may not have been comfortable living without Garda protection, but I have a feeling that it may have been withdrawn, given the fiscal situation and the fact that the threat has greatly diminished.

I really do feel for him, after what happened to his son, he was then promised the sun, moon and stars by the government of the day, only for it to become abundantly clear that he'd simply been used for the purposes of FF's "tough on crime" political theatre, a total betrayal.

source

Ned_led16 wrote: »

I am disgusted to hear this:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0326/limerick.html

What is going wrong with the law when this kind of thing is tolerated!
How can it be stopped?

Maybe is it a Political issue? Surely the Gardai should be given immense power to combat this? But the message is loud and clear at the moment if you testify you must leave the country!
criminals have won and beaten the Law!

I dont agree with the American way but in LA im sure the cops would just shoot and kill this type of criminal and do it in a way that it was claimed self defence but set up! thats obviously not the right way but we have a gross miscarriage of justice here.

Firstly I have to say that your American comparison is pretty laughable, it's a country with probably the largest population of witnesses in formal witness protection programs in the world. The only difference between what is happening here and what happens there is that our country has half the population of the largest city in the US, and the entire land mass or Ireland is a very very very small fraction of the land mass of the US. As such they have more flexibility in how they operate their witness protection program.

For example, here we have to send people entering the protection of the state abroad, usually to the US, where they can get lost in the crowd and 9 times out of 10 they will have a better life than they could ever have here. In the US the country is so big that they can move a person to the neighbouring state and they will be safe, usually though the are moved to the opposite side of the country, just to be sure.

Yes the cops in the US have guns and are not afraid to use them, but....I'll let you in on a little secret, there are over 3000 armed members of An Garda Siochana.

So this is far from a miscarriage of justice, it is in fact the norm in countries with populations far bigger than ours, who are used to dealing with a much higher level of violent crime. While it isn't ideal, if we look at the practical side, Steve Collins is a publican in a country where pubs are closing on a weekly basis, leaving the country is a great opportunity for him to have a better life, and he's able to do it on the state's money. The other plus to it, is he no longer has to worry if there's a bullet waiting for him around the next corner and he no longer has to be babysat 24/7/365 by 2 armed Gardai.

Ned_led16 wrote: »

What were dealing with here is the mob! This is the Irish and English Mafia! I suppose its impossible to bring them down! Just sad that the criminal has prevailed over the law! They are above and beyond the law - we all know that!
If you testify against them you leave the country!

Glorifying them by likening them to an international organisation like the mafia is ridiculous. They are drug dealers, who have idiots around them to do their bidding, that is all. The mafia is a large and complicated crime syndicate that are involved in some major crimes including complicated fraud. The fools that are the Dundons are violent sociopaths but they most certainly are not Don's of a major crime organisation.

As Benway has said, the McCarthy Dundon gang is currently lying in tatters and Limerick hasn't experienced gang related violence in quite some time. What the city has seen has been nowhere near what has happened in Dublin/Louth/Wicklow in the last few months.

Limerick is a changing city, violent crime is massively down, and that is due to some fantastic police work and a serious no crap attitude being taken against those involved in violent crime. As such many of the main instigators if the crime issues Limerick has been facing over the last while are either dead or in prison.

Ned_led16

We only know the tip of the iceberg! these lads are bad news. They are the English and Irish mafia mob, and so are there associates. Wake up and smell the roses.

They dont give a sh*t about prison courts justice - they live their own way and have no regard for the way you do! If they dont like you they will kill you for fun. These people are animals!

To me anyone who drug deals on a large scale and is willing to shoot and kill and is part of organized crime is part of a mafia - whats the difference.

Its absolute nonsense that you must be part of a complex criminal fraud bracket to be part of the mafia. Its about invisible links and lines across countries based upon crime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia

benway

Ned_led16 wrote: »

To me anyone who drug deals on a large scale and is willing to shoot and kill and is part of organized crime is part of a mafia - whats the difference.

I'm not sure if their drug "business" was ever particularly large-scale, but in any event, the difference for me is that the mafia operates on a sophisticated, organised basis, such that they could legitimately be said to represent a serious threat to the functioning of the states in which they operate. Having said that, it is by no means clear that the "mafia family" type organisation that you get in the movies has ever existed in real life.

Most of the Irish "gangs" are nothing more than a loosely associated rabble, albeit a dangerous rabble, the Dundons being a good example.

I've studied this in a bit of depth, and I personally think that the mafia analogy is misleading and unhelpful. We need Irish solutions to Irish problems, not knee jerk responses based on importing policy approaches from abroad, and conceptualising the problem in terms of a globalised discourse that doesn't effectively address the specific reality.

source

Ned_led16 wrote: »

We only know the tip of the iceberg! these lads are bad news. They are the English and Irish mafia mob, and so are there associates. Wake up and smell the roses.

They dont give a sh*t about prison courts justice - they live their own way and have no regard for the way you do! If they dont like you they will kill you for fun. These people are animals!

To me anyone who drug deals on a large scale and is willing to shoot and kill and is part of organized crime is part of a mafia - whats the difference.

Its absolute nonsense that you must be part of a complex criminal fraud bracket to be part of the mafia. Its about invisible links and lines across countries based upon crime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia

Ned I'm sorry, but I was a Garda in Limerick for over 4 years, I'm gone from the job now, but can tell you with 100% confidence, that when it comes to the Dundons, what you see is what you get. They are not criminal masterminds, yes they have loose connections with other criminals around the world but you cannot portray them as a Mafia, The Italian, Russian and Irish Mafia, that sprung up in the US and Eastern Europe are a Mafia, the Yakuza and Triads from Japan and China are Mafias, in the true sense of the word.

They are organised crime syndicates, with a rigid rank structure, their own internal "justice" system, and are involved in all aspects of crime, from what would be classed as the petty; extortion, illegal gambling, drugs, car theft (for forward sale), right up to the multi million Euro/Dollar frauds, and murders.

Two lads in Weston, with a shipment of drugs, a psychological imbalance, a group of idiot hangers on and a few international acquaintances, does not make them a Mafia.

Mossess

Source, I think you have nailed it on the head. What they are not is the Mafia, masterminds, or probably even capable of handling cutlery. Up and down the country it’s the same though. People are being advised not to testify against them. As such they are free to do whatever they want to whoever they want. As long as people don’t stand up to them they have the power to act like animals. And the funny thing is that they probably talk more to the Guards than anyone, about what their counterparts are doing.
When the decision is made nationally that every case is to be prosecuted these yobs will be finished. Combine that with long sentences and no bail and they will only be referred to in the past tense.

benway

Mossess wrote: »

When the decision is made nationally that every case is to be prosecuted these yobs will be finished. Combine that with long sentences and no bail and they will only be referred to in the past tense.

I don't think there will be any significant progress while the black market in drugs still allows young fellas to make a small fortune in a very short time, with barely the need for two functional brain cells to rub together. There will always be more to take their place, especially given the kind of deprivation and social exclusion prevalent in places like Weston and Moyross, where there's no shortage of wannabe kingpins.

Whether we like to admit it or not, the drug prohibition made these guys what they are - the likes of the Dundons will still be psychos, but they'll find it hard to gather a gang around them if they aren't bringing in serious money, plus many of the killings, at least in the first wave following their arrival in Limerick, were directly related to their taking control of the drugs trade in the city - this is as I understand it, open to correction.