People living in Dublin's Coombe area who were aware of the background to the killing of the heroin addict and AIDS victim, Josey Dwyer, three years ago, said this week they were confounded that the main witness in the case, Alan Byrne, was not receiving Garda protection.
Mr Byrne, who is recovering in hospital after being shot three times in the back in a failed murder attempt on Tuesday, had given up his heroin addiction and was working in a west Dublin warehouse. He kept a regular work routine and was clearly susceptible to attack.
He had co-operated with the Gardai and had given television interviews about the killing of his friend, Josey.
Within a few days of Mr Dwyer's killing there had been reports of intimidation in the case. Members of two families who had witnessed the mob attack on Mr Dwyer reported within days that they had been intimidated by republican figures and were told not to assist the Garda.
Local gardai and residents pointed immediately to IRA involvement in the killing and the subsequent intimidation. Gardai again confirmed this week they are considering IRA involvement in the attempt to murder Mr Byrne.
According to local gardai there are a number of IRA figures living in the south inner city who have been used by the organisation mainly to operate money-laundering operations through front businesses and to hide other IRA men on the run.
The local IRA is said to be a largely self-sufficient group. On occasions it has taken a lead role in anti-drugs vigilante activities, but there has been no sustained pressure from it on drug-dealing.
According to some sources there is also a suspicion that local IRA figures turn a blind eye to the activities of some drug-dealers.
There are said to be two significant drug-dealers living openly in the same streets where IRA figures live, and heroin is said to be still sold into the area by remnants of the group that surrounded the murdered south Dublin gangster, Martin Cahill.
As the investigation into Mr Dwyer's killing dragged on, it seemed, according to local people, that there was an increasing threat to the main witness, Mr Byrne. On Tuesday morning a gunman dressed in workman's clothes walked up to him in Vauxhall Avenue and emptied a handgun at him. Three bullets hit him in the back.
Mr Byrne is now in a Dublin hospital where a garda from Kevin Street station has been placed on duty at his bedside in case of a further attempt to kill him. It was not clear yesterday if Mr Byrne will continue to agree to act as a witness in the Dwyer case.
The attempted murder of Mr Byrne has compounded the resentment and frustration among gardai that emerged after the Det Garda Jerry McCabe case where four members of the IRA escaped capital murder convictions after the intimidation of a key witness, Mr Patrick Harty. Mr Harty, the Special Criminal Court heard, refused to give evidence because he was "in fear of his life" after being threatened, apparently by the IRA.
In response to the events in the McCabe case, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, announced that his Department was drawing up legislation making it an offence to intimidate or follow a witness. On Tuesday night, after the shooting of Mr Byrne, he said this legislation was being brought forward in the very near future.
On Thursday it emerged that there had been another instances of intimidation of a jury in another murder case before the Central Criminal Court. The jury foreman in the case of the trial in respect of a 23-year-old Dublin man, Mr Mark Dwyer, who was stabbed and shot to death in December 1996, expressed concern about their personal safety.
Senior Garda sources said yesterday the incidents of jury intimidation and attempted murder of a witness were the predictable follow-on from the McCabe case, where capital murder charges were seen to be dropped in favour of the much lesser offence of manslaughter.
One source said the Government's response of making it an offence to intimidate a witness was issued within five days of the acceptance of the manslaughter verdict in Garda McCabe's case. It appeared, it was said, a relatively short time to consider and devise a response to the very serious issue of witness intimidation.
Gardai are also sceptical on the point that the anti-intimidation legislation is also based on the same grounds as the original criminal case, in that a witness will still have to give evidence against the alleged intimidator in open court.
A senior officer said the State still did not offer satisfactory protection to witnesses, particularly in cases where there was republican or organised criminal involvement.