7,300 checkpoints set up during 'Anvil' - Garda

Gardaí have seized more than 120 guns, 800 vehicles, and €1.6 million worth of property in the first 10 weeks of Operation Anvil, the force said today.

There have also been around 7,300 checkpoints set up, 2,000 drugs searches conducted and 224 arrests. The arrests include three for murder, 63 for serious assaults and 57 for robbery.

The figures were released by the Garda Press Office, which said that - contrary to a newspaper report on Sunday - "Operation Anvil, which commenced on the May 17th, 2005, in the Dublin Metropolitan Region continues to operate."

Operation Anvil was set up last May, with a budget of €6.5 million, in response to a series of violent gangland crimes, particularly among west Dublin criminals.

One senior officer said at the time that Garda management feared a member of the force would be killed by gangs armed with automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

The discharging of firearms in the previous year increased by 38 per cent to 290 cases, and the seven weeks leading up to the initiation of Operation Anvil saw seven gun murders - six in Dublin and one in Sligo.

Labour Party justice spokesman Joe Costello today called on the Government to fund a long-term security operation following a recent spate of gangland drive-by shootings in Dublin that have left three men seriously injured in the past two days.

The latest attack was an early-evening shooting of two men working on a car in a residential part of Drimnagh, south Dublin last night. That followed an attack on a man (25) in the nearby Kimmage area on Sunday night.

Mr Costello said the two attacks were callous and brutal murder attempts that only failed to succeed by sheer luck.

"The gardaí cannot effectively combat gun crime if they have to function merely on a blitz basis for a few months of the year until the money for a particular operation runs out. We cannot continue to have a stop/go approach to taking on gangs."

Mr Costello said the Government must immediately commit itself to a year-long strategy to put gun gangs out of business permanently.

The Garda Press Office said the operation is ongoing and that "covert operations and intelligence gathering exercises continue to be an integral part of the operational plan".