Limerick prison officers have been subjected to a spate of attacks with shots fired, a car petrol-bombed and a hoax bomb planted. Éibhir Mulqueen reports.
Attacks on Limerick prison officers over the past 10 days have highlighted the profession's vulnerability.
There have been three attacks at the homes of two prison officers since last Monday week. In the first, an officer's car was petrol-bombed outside his home in Dooradoyle.
The following Wednesday, a hoax bomb was left in the porch of a second prison officer's home, causing anxiety to him, his family and neighbours, and disruption to traffic while an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team checked it out. The officer and some of his colleagues who were at the scene declined to comment.
Then at the weekend, two shots, probably from a shotgun, were discharged at the home of the Dooradoyle-based prison officer. Nobody was injured but the neighbourhood was woken up.
The 200 prison officers in Limerick have been told not to comment to the media, but privately they acknowledge that in a small city of 80,000 people they are vulnerable once the respect accorded to them goes. It does not take long for their addresses to be known by the ex-prisoner population. Some of them have attended the same schools as their charges. Others find that the person renting nearby or doing a delivery round recognises them from inside.
Some of them believe their addresses may have become known in 1998 after a computer containing their personal details was moved from the governor's office to the library, where it could be accessed by prisoners.
At the time, three officers brought a High Court case seeking damages. Before the case was concluded, agreement was reached with the State over disclosure of the information on the computer to the officers, and who may have accessed it.
Around that time, a prison officer was assaulted and another officer's new house was burnt after an incendiary device was thrown at it.
On the current case, Chief Supt Gerry Kelly said one person was in custody. "We have a team in place for the two districts of Henry Street and Roxboro Road and we also have assistance from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation."
Supt Willie Keane, of Roxboro Garda station, said: "We are following certain lines of inquiry."
Off the record, there is no doubt in the minds of gardaí as to who the perpetrators are. They believe it is an attempt to frustrate an impending prosecution, even though the prison officers targeted are not involved. One Garda source said a southside drugs gang, which has associates who intimidated gardaí in the past, is believed to be involved in the current vendetta.
Last year, an associate received a three-month suspended sentence for making threats against prison officers. It is believed the strategy behind the current attacks is to frustrate prosecutions by either intimidating witnesses or reaching an agreement with them before a court case. In an unrelated case, a file has been sent to the DPP over threats and intimidation of gardaí investigating the activities of a criminal gang.
Most attacks on prison officers in the State have occurred within the confines of the prison walls. A former Limerick prison officer, Mr Alan Kavanagh, was attacked by three inmates two years ago. He received 75 stitches after his face was slashed and he will not be returning to the service.
The three attackers received a total of 21 years' imprisonment as punishment. In sentencing one of them, Paul Dixon, of Brendan House, Brendan Road, Dublin, to eight years, Judge Sean O'Leary said three years of that sentence reflected the gravity of an attack on a prison officer. Prison officers and gardaí had to be protected in a special way against attacks of this kind, he said.
Yesterday, Mr Kavanagh said the current attacks, because they were not isolated, were a new experience for prison staff who would be concerned for their families and property.
"I felt very safe at my place of work and I had the full support systems around me of officers in uniform and alarm radios. I felt protected within that environment and yet they nearly killed me.
"A prison officer going home with all that support left behind must be feeling very, very concerned."
Mr John Clinton, general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, said he was now waiting on a response from the Minister for Justice and the director general of the Prison Authority on the issue.
"If Garda intelligence informs us that this is a serious campaign, we will be asking for consideration to be given for a special task force to be set up."