THE MAYOR of Limerick said the departure of Steve Collins and his family from the city was a “sad day for Irish democracy”.
Mr Collins, his wife Carmel, their sons and daughters – with their partners and children – left the country yesterday for an undisclosed destination as part of a Garda relocation programme.
The family were forced to leave Ireland because of constant threats from members of the gang behind the murder of Mr Collins’s son Roy in 2009.
The father of two was shot dead in the amusement arcade he ran, which was next door to his father’s Steering Wheel pub, in Roxboro. He died in his father’s arms.
Steve Collins and his sons, Steve jnr and Ryan Lee, removed all furniture from the pub last Thursday before shutting it for good.
Yesterday, black shutters were down at the pub, which will remain closed until a new owner is found.
The only sign connecting the Collinses to the area is a wall plaque unveiled two years ago in Roy’s memory, which bears his picture.
When approached outside the pub in recent days for a comment about rumours he was going to leave the country, Mr Collins replied: “I can’t talk to you now. I’ll talk to you later. I’m going on a holiday. I’m on my way to pick up my wife now and I can’t talk about my security.”
Mr Collins left in his car, followed by an unmarked Garda patrol car with two armed and plain-clothed officers inside. The Garda security team had been following Mr Collins and his family for 24-hours a day, seven days a week, over the past three years.
Yesterday, mayor Jim Long said: “It’s a sad day for democracy. But I have to respect Steve Collins’s decision.
“I know he wanted closure – even though he can never really find closure. It’s sad it has come to this but I do not want a message to go out that the perpetrators have won.
“Steve has to move on in his life and I sincerely, as mayor, have always supported him and will continue to do so.
“Steve and his family have lost a loved one and his family have been totally disjointed. They had to sit up and see what way they had to formalise their lives.
“It was their only option. They have to live in a safe environment – maybe the State couldn’t provide it.
“It must have been a huge strain emotionally, mentally and physically. You have to admire him. I wish him all the best.”
Limerick’s Chief Supt David Sheahan confirmed yesterday’s relocation was the result of 16 months’ planning.
“This didn’t happen overnight. It’s taken 15 or 16 months work. It’s not something that was dreamt up.
“A substantial amount of my role as chief superintendent was taken up with this. It’s not something that just fell out of the sky,” he said.
“Time will tell if it’s successful or not. A lot of time and resources have gone into this. You have a family that have had to move on and that’s hard for them.
“That’s what they wanted. Ultimately they had to do what they wanted to do. They’ll be able to try and go back to living some sort of normal life.”
The Collins family will be keeping their identities, and jobs have been organised for them.
Life for the Collins family changed on December 19th, 2004, when Steve Collins’s adopted son, Ryan-Lee, was shot twice after refusing the 14-year-old sister of Wayne Dundon entry to the family’s pub, called Brannigan’s.
No one has been convicted of the shooting, but Wayne Dundon was subsequently jailed for seven years for threatening to kill the 18-year-old barman on the night of the attack.
The Collins family, who gave evidence against Dundon, had been threatened and pursued by the Dundon/McCarthy gang ever since.
In April 2009, the Collins’s eldest boy, Roy, was shot dead. James Dillon, of no fixed abode, was jailed for life in 2010 for the killing.