The Minister for Justice has contacted the Garda Commissioner about the weekend shootings in Dublin. Five people were wounded, two of them women, in gangland-style shootings in Dublin in 13 hours from Sunday evening.
The five were shot in three attacks in the city while in the fourth attack, gunmen targeted the wrong house, shooting at the car of an innocent family.
One of the female victims is aged 17. The other woman, aged 26, was shot as her eight-year-old daughter slept just feet away.
"Gardaí are following up all of the cases, none of which are related to each other," Michael McDowell told The Irish Times yesterday in Glenties, Co Donegal. He was attending the MacGill summer school.
The Minister said one of the incidents had nothing to do with gangland activities or drugs and seemed to be a family dispute.
"The others were apparently instances of people settling grievances. You would have to ask what it would be on a hot Sunday evening with, perhaps, drink and drugs taken, people went about settling scores with other people in the gang-drugs underworld."
The shootings, the first of which took place on Sunday evening and the last at 7.20am yesterday, represent one of the busiest periods for gangland-style violence in Dublin.
The most high profile of those targeted was Mark Desmond (31), Lally Road, Ballyfermot.
In 2000, he was charged with the murders of Patrick Murray (19) from Ballyfermot and Darren Carey (20) from Kilmainham.
Drug-dealers, they were shot in the head and dumped in the Grand Canal in January 2000. The murder charges were later withdrawn. Mr Desmond was convicted of unlawful possession of firearms with intent to endanger life in late 2002, but this was overturned in December 2004.
Mr Desmond was shot in Tallaght at 6.40pm on Sunday evening as he was in a car driven by an associate, Kevin Kenny (26). Mr Kenny's brother, Martin, was shot dead in May 2005. He was involved in the drugs trade.
The men were at traffic lights at the junction of Old Bawn Road and Seskinview Road, Tallaght, when a motorcycle carrying two men pulled up alongside. The pillion passenger opened fire on the passenger side of the vehicle.
Mr Desmond was shot in the arm and Mr Kenny was wounded in the buttock. Tallaght hospital said their conditions were not life-threatening. Gardaí are working on the theory that those who carried out the shooting are involved in drugs and that Mr Desmond was the intended victim.
In Clondalkin, a 17-year-old girl was shot in the arm and leg outside a house on Greensfort Crescent, at about 12.30am yesterday. She was with a group of people when a car pulled up and one of its occupants opened fire.
Gardaí believe the teenager was shot as part of feud in which her family had become embroiled with another. Her father is well known to gardaí. It is understood he has refused to allow gardaí to interview his daughter. She was taken to Tallaght hospital where her injuries were said not to be life-threatening.
At 1.20am yesterday, two men opened fire outside a house on Neilstown Gardens, Clondalkin, and hit the boot of a car in the driveway. Gardaí believe the gunmen mistook the house, in which a family lives, for the home of a drug-dealer who lives close by.
In the last of the four attacks at about 7.20am yesterday, a gunman kicked in the hall door of a maisonette on Finglaswood Road, Finglas, ran upstairs and found a 20-year-old man and his 26-year-old partner. He fired once at the man, wounding him in the groin, and once at the woman, wounding her in the right leg which it is feared she might lose.
The woman's eight-year-old daughter was sleeping at the time but she was uninjured. Gardaí in Finglas believe the shooting is linked to the man's involvement in the drugs trade. Anybody with information is asked to contact Finglas gardaí on (01) 666 7500.
Ronanstown gardaí - (01) 666 7700 - are investigating the shootings at Greensfort Crescent and Neilstown Gardens, while gardaí in Tallaght - (01) 666 6000 - are investigating the shooting of Mark Desmond and Kevin Kenny.