REGENERATION OFFICIALS say they plan to develop a community services centre at the Limerick pub and casino premises formerly owned by the Collins family.
The family of Steve Collins has fled Ireland after eight years of threats from the McCarthy-Dundon criminal gang and are receiving State assistance in their plans to start a new life abroad.
The adjacent pub and casino premises at the Roxboro Shopping Centre could be reopened as a centre by June and will provide services to local people on the south side of the city.
Prior to the departure of the family on Monday to an undisclosed country – as part of a secret Garda relocation programme – the State purchased the Steering Wheel pub and Coin Castle amusement arcade for €500,000.
In 2004, Steve Collins’s adopted son Ryan Lee was shot and injured by the gang for refusing to allow Wayne Dundon’s 14-year-old sister, Annabell, entry to the Collins’s other pub, Brannigan’s. Wayne Dundon was jailed for seven years for threatening to kill Mr Lee on the night of the shooting. Five years later, the gang murdered Steve’s eldest son, Roy, at the Coin Castle on a Holy Thursday afternoon. Gang member James Dillon was jailed for life in 2010 for the killing.
Regeneration chief executive Brendan Kenny said: “We’ll be starting work on the premises shortly. We’ve had conversations about it and we hope to have progress made by June. It’s important to give a positive signal to the public and give something back to the community.”
Former Fianna Fáil minister for defence Willie O’Dea criticised his party for not having bought the premises when in power.
“One thing I would be very critical about, and indeed of my own party, was not purchasing the properties sooner. I had been trying to get it done for six years and it was like hitting my head off a brick wall. If the State had moved sooner, Steve and his family could have got out of town sooner. He may even have been in a position to have been able to come back by now, and he wouldn’t have had to endure years of Garda protection. It’s a sad day for law and order.”
Mr Collins has promised to return should the State need him to be a witness in a number of possible upcoming gangland trials.
“All I’ll say is that the people who go up against gangs are extra-brave and they should be looked after in every way. Steve Collins and his family did the State an immense service, and every reasonable request by them should be complied with,” Mr O’Dea said.