Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Regrettably, there were two gangland murders at the weekend, bringing to 17 or 18 the figure for gangland murders this year. The Minister had briefings yesterday and today with senior Garda officers, including the Garda Commissioner and deputy commissioner, on the double murder on Sunday night in south-west Dublin, to which Deputy Rabbitte referred. He briefed me and my Cabinet colleagues this morning on the double murder in south-west Dublin on Sunday night, referred to by Deputy Rabbitte. All the indications are that this event was part of a vicious feud between two relatively small groups that are struggling to control drug distribution in areas of the west side of Dublin. These people deal in death and they will kill to protect their patch and recover their debts. I am subject to correction on this, but I understand the gangs concerned are responsible for eight of the 18 murders committed this year. The Garda has invested a large amount of resources and detective and surveillance time into Operation Anvil to target these two gangs specifically. The vicious feud has continued for some time, as Deputy Rabbitte knows.

The Garda has been concentrating enormous resources in terms of manpower, overtime and intelligence towards suppressing the activities of what is a highly dangerous group of criminals in recent months. Its efforts have not been targeted exclusively at these two gangs, although it has concentrated on them significantly. Obviously, I cannot go through all the detail on which I have been briefed in this regard and, in any event, much of it is well known.

Garda activity under Operation Anvil, which was originally meant to be a short-term programme, has continued as the numbers of gardaí and specialist units have increased. There is now a drugs force in every Garda district. The Garda has 18,000 checkpoints under Operation Anvil while several hundred firearms and more than 2,350 vehicles have been seized. The Garda has had more than 5,000 drugs seizures, seven arrests for murders, 163 for serious robbery and several hundred for other forms of burglary. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, with the backing of the Government, has allocated considerable resources to Operation Anvil which will remain in place so long as it to continues to yield worthwhile results.

However, it is no use saying that drug crime is not lucrative. It attracts certain types of persons. The consequence of their disagreements, unfortunately, is death because that is how they do their business. This is of concern to everyone and the only way to tackle it is for the Garda to try to deal with the problem to the best of its ability, as it is doing. Not much remains unknown about these gangs, but the Garda must remain within the law in dealing with the problem, nonetheless.

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