A well-known criminal was shot dead in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Dublin last night, bringing the number of people murdered since last Friday to five.
Gerard Bath Byrne (25), was shot up to five times in the head just before 9pm outside the Mace supermarket on Lower Mayor Street in the IFSC. He was taken to the Mater Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
He was originally from Ferryman's Crossing, not far from where he was shot, and was heavily involved in crime, according to Garda sources.
He had recently been implicated in a grenade attack on a property in the north inner city which was part of feud between well-known criminal families.
Byrne was arrested in Raheny, Dublin, some months ago when gardaí believed he was on his way to carry out a murder.
He had also threatened a number of detectives attached to specialist Garda units which are involved in the fight against organised crime. He was heavily involved in armed robbery and was very well known to gardaí.
Four other people have been murdered in the last six days: postmaster Alan Cunniffe was shot dead in Kilkenny last Friday; Martin "Marlo" Hyland, a major drug dealer, and Anthony Campbell, a 20-year old apprentice plumber who happened to be working in the house where Hyland was staying, were shot in Finglas on Tuesday morning; and Dundalk man Aidan Myers was killed on Tuesday evening outside the town.
In the IFSC last night, uniformed gardaí cordoned off a section of Lower Mayor Street and diverted traffic from either end.
Local residents described hearing several loud shots and seeing two men in balaclavas speeding away in a car that was parked nearby. For the seven or eight minutes it took for an ambulance to arrive, they said, a lone security guard tended to the victim's wounds with tissue paper.
"The bangs were so loud, I thought a lorry was after losing its load," said one. "It's like Goodfellas or something. No mercy. It's hard to believe.
"I was in the front room with the TV on and I could hear the shots clear as day. I've never heard gunfire, but it sounded like a machine gun. The loudness of it.
"They riddled him, head and chest, and the blood, it was pumping out of him. They knew what they were doing."
Last night's killing will put the Government, particularly Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, under intense pressure over its performance on tackling record levels of gun crime and gangland murders.
Opposition parties last night claimed the latest killings necessitated a response from the State as forceful and determined as that seen in the wake of the 1996 murder of Veronica Guerin.
Earlier yesterday, Mr McDowell said the outbreak of gangland violence was so serious it was undermining society's sense of well-being.
He made his comments after the family of Anthony Campbell said they doubted his killers would ever be caught. The Minister said while he could not guarantee the double Finglas murder would be solved, gardaí were doing all they could to bring those responsible to justice.
Mr McDowell defended comments he made two years ago when he said a number of gangland killings at the time represented the "last sting of a dying wasp".
At that time, he said, the Blanchardstown-based Westies gang had been dismantled. However others, including "Marlo" Hyland, had "stood into their shoes".
Four of the five murder victims since last Friday were shot dead. The other victim, Aidan Myers (37), Cox's Demesne, Dundalk, Co Louth, was killed by a drunken gang late on Tuesday night just outside Dundalk.
He was attacked by gang members who went on a cross-Border crime rampage in South Armagh and Co Louth late on Tuesday and in the early hours of yesterday during which they hijacked a number of cars before ramming the vehicle Mr Myers and a friend were travelling in.
They then apparently fatally assaulted him on the road when he got out of his friend's car.
Gardaí are working on the theory that a group of Travellers who hijacked a number of vehicles in an almost identical cross-Border rampage in September may have been involved in the latest attack.
Gardaí investigating the Finglas murders believe those responsible are close associates of Hyland who wanted him dead because his activities were attracting too much Garda attention.
Last night's killing in Dublin brings to 24 the number of gun homicides this year.