A Limerick city councillor has said he is not surprised that a 25-year-old man was shot dead in a city housing estate despite the presence of armed gardaí in the area.
Father-of-three Gary Grant was gunned down just yards from his home on St Ita's Street in St Mary's Park, at 10.15pm on Monday night.
The fatal shooting took despite the presence of the Emergency Response Unit who had just seconds earlier finished carrying out a checkpoint at the top of the street.
Monday night's fatal shooting was the seventh shooting in St Mary's Park in the past two weeks and came just a fortnight after a 21-year-old man was seriously injured in a shooting in the same estate.
Local independent councillor John Gilligan, who lives in the nearby Lee Estate, said he was not surprised the latest shooting had taken while armed gardaí were in the vicinity.
"Unfortunately it was only a matter of time before something like this was going to happen, there has been so many shootings in the area in the past number of days. People are terrified and I've been inundated with people calling me looking to leave their homes, " said Cllr Gilligan.
"We need the 100 extra gardai as promised in the Fitzgerald report to be deployed to Limerick and we need them now. We can't talk about the regeneration of our estates until the people living in these estates feel safe," he added.
Cllr Gillligan called on Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan to send extra gardaí to Limerick immediately.
"This is crisis time. There is no point sending out the life-boat after the boat has sunk," he added.