President Mary McAleese has said that the only way to stop gangland criminals from flourishing is for people to refuse to buy the illegal material they sell.
Against the backdrop of an upsurge in murders, she described violent criminals as "selfish predators" who had no contribution to make to society except to wreak devastation on communities.
She was speaking at the inaugural Justice Mella Carroll address at Dublin City University (DCU) on Wednesday night.
Mrs McAleese, who will shortly celebrate the 10th anniversary of her election as President, said the rise of such criminals raised troubling questions for modern society. "In our avidly entrepreneurial age where the entrepreneurial success of legitimate business is mirrored by the growing success of criminal entrepreneurs who have no code of values, no respect for life, no sense of social responsibility or patriotism and no contribution to make to our society beyond the devastation they wreak as selfish predators, we have to wonder about the life formation that made of their lives such 'an evil cradling', to borrow a telling phrase from Brian Keenan."
Mrs McAleese said Éamon de Valera had held that the essential thing in any state was not the governmental framework but the standard of citizenship on which it rested. This was a key question today, as society questions how to deal with such criminals.
"We in Ireland are clearly not a community without law, but there is a realm of wilful capriciousness that raises some tricky questions for modern Irish society about the extent to which respect for law, respect for the self and respect for others are still part of the early building blocks that form the core of our lifelong civic, social and personal consciousness."
In an RTÉ interview following her speech, she said the population at large had a role to play in tackling gangland activity by refusing to buy illegal goods which ultimately fuel violence in society.
