Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea has said he expects gardaí to make arrests in the near future over the shooting of a five-year-old boy in Limerick last weekend.
Jordan Crawford was standing with a group of people outside a house in O'Malley Park in Limerick's Southill area on Sunday evening when a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic handgun, hitting him once in the upper thigh. He is still in hospital recovering from his injuries. His condition is understood to be stable
Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea
Gardaí do not believe the boy was deliberately singled out, but instead was caught in the line of fire when the gunman attempted to shoot another individual..
The house, which is owned by a relative of the boy, has been targeted before in an ongoing feud.
Mr O'Dea, the Fianna Fáil TD for Limerick East, said today he has been assured by senior gardaí that the attackers would be arrested.
"They are very confident of making progress and making arrests in this matter very, very shortly," he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
Mr O'Dea dismissed claims that not enough was being done to tackle rising crime in the city. "We are pouring resources into the situation," he said.
However, he admitted that no matter how many Garda patrols were sent out in trouble hotspots, it was impossible to eradicate all crime.
Tánaiste Michael McDowell
Labour Party TD Jan O'Sullivan expressed her horror at Sunday night's shooting. She said this proved the need for a dedicated 24-hour police presence in vulnerable housing estates to break the cycle of violence.
Limerick city is not out of control and is not being terrorised by armed criminals, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said yesterday in the wake of Sunday's shooting. Despite the "depraved" nature of the attack, he said he believed gardaí were winning the battle against gun crime in the city.
Speaking at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, Mr McDowell insisted a very small number of people in a small number of estates were behind most of the serious gun crime in Limerick.
"The depravity of people who are using firearms to settle family feuds is disgraceful.
"The fact that a young child could be the innocent victim of this kind of depraved behaviour is very disturbing."