GARDAÍ INVESTIGATING a shooting at a house occupied by an elderly couple in Dublin’s south inner city believe they were targeted because they are related to a man involved in a drugs feud in the city.
The drive-by shooting occurred at about 10pm on Wednesday in Cork Street. Shots were fired from a passing car.
The couple living in the house are in their 70s and 80s, and were not injured in the shooting.
Gardaí believe the incident was revenge for a gun attack at lunchtime on Wednesday in nearby Drimnagh. A grandmother in her 50s was wounded in the shoulder when a gunman fired shots into her home on Knocknarea Road.
The injured woman is related to two men who are members of one of two gangs in Crumlin and Drimnagh whose feuding has cost 10 lives in recent years.
The elderly couple, whose home was shot at in Cork Street, are related to a member of the rival faction.
Gardaí investigating the feuding have stepped up patrols in the areas where the main gang members live and socialise.
The main players are already under investigation by specialist Garda units, including the Criminal Assets Bureau, Garda National Drugs Unit and Organised Crime Unit.
The latest non-fatal shootings follow the murders of 10 men involved in the feud since the start of the decade.
Opposition parties have called for firm action to be taken against those behind the violence.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD (SF), in whose Dublin South Central constituency the two shootings took place, has called for the creation of a special Garda taskforce to tackle the Crumlin-Drimnagh drugs feud.
He said the feud-related violence was getting worse, with those carrying out the shootings now targeting innocent people in “more indiscriminate and more ruthless” attacks.
Labour’s Mary Upton TD, who also represents the constituency, said the Government and the Garda must now formulate plans to tackle the flow of illegal firearms into the State.
“Access to guns seems to present no problem to those who want to get them for subversive purposes,” she said.
Meanwhile, gardaí investigating the shooting of a man on Malahide Road, Coolock, on Wednesday evening have found a car they believe was used in the shooting. The Fiat was found burned out at Clonross Drive, Coolock.
The victim, a 29-year-old man from Coolock, was wounded in the back after a number of shots were fired into his car in a car park outside Total Fitness gym. He remains in hospital.
His shooting is believed to be drug-related, but is not linked to the shootings in Drimnagh or Cork Street.
