Sunday's gun murder is the latest serious crime involving teenagers, writes Conor Lally.
WHEN NEWS of the killing of Aidan O'Kane began to filter through to the media on Sunday night it quickly became clear the father-of-one was an innocent victim of Ireland's growing gun culture rather than a gangland criminal.
Coming less than a month after the last killing of an innocent man - Shane Geoghegan in Limerick - it was a major news event.
But no sooner had word broken Mr O'Kane was dead than gardaí and then journalists realised those at the scene of the killing were aged from 13 years.
When a gang of young teenagers hanging around the streets harassing a working man have access to a loaded handgun and are willing to use it, the sequence of events becomes truly shocking.
The age of those involved is an extremely worrying development.
The spur-of-the-moment killing by a child of the middle-aged Dubliner is the kind of crime we associate with teenage gangs in London, where children carrying guns and knives has reached epidemic proportions. London-style juvenile murder has now begun to secure a foothold, albeit a small one, here in Ireland.
One does not have to travel too far back in time to the last incident in which murder was meted out at the hands of teenagers.
In February, Pawel Kalite (29) and Marius Szwajkos (27) were stabbed in the head and neck with screwdrivers. The two Polish crash repair workers became involved in an argument with teenagers outside shops on Benbulben Road, Drimnagh, a short distance from where they lived, at 6.50pm on Saturday, February 23rd.
Both died in St James's Hospital in the days after the attack. Gardaí believe the group that taunted the men included boys as young as 14 years.
Two people, a 17-year-old boy and 19-year-old man, are currently charged in relation to the double killing.
In 2002 Alan Higgins (17) was stabbed to death in Coolock by a 15-year-old during an attempt to rob his mobile phone.
Away from random killings, evidence is also emerging that boys are becoming involved in gangland crime.
In Dublin recently a 15-year-old was caught with cocaine valued at €30,000. Gardaí have also come across many cases where youngsters are employed by drugs gangs to store and transport illegal items including drugs and guns.
In October a court in Limerick heard how a 14-year-old boy told gardaí he had shot at a house in the city because he "felt like it".
When John Ryan (47) was shot dead as part of the Limerick feud in July 2003 a local 15-year-old emerged as the chief suspect.
The increasing involvement of such young boys in these crimes is proof that many children are drifting out of the education system and into a subculture of extreme violence. It is a cycle that will only be broken by an education- and social services-based response in tandem with the Garda. Policing alone cannot be expected to provide a panacea.