The Sinn Fein member shot at his granddaughter's First Communion Mass in Dublin described yesterday how he met the gunman a month ago. As he recovered in hospital yesterday, Mr Larry O'Toole recalled that he had told the man that his activities in a Ballymun flat were "unacceptable".
"Those were the only dealings I had with him," Mr O'Toole said. "I just told him it was unacceptable to be having an impact on families around him. I didn't threaten him or anything."
In the Mater Hospital yesterday Mr O'Toole was with his wife, Ann, and grandchildren, Gavin (10) and Laura (8), still wearing her communion dress.
Mr O'Toole's son, Lar, was also being treated in hospital for gunshot wounds to the chest and head, received when he chased the gunman out of the church. His condition was last night described as stable.
Mr O'Toole recalled yesterday the moment he first noticed his attacker during the Mass in St Joseph's Church in Ballymun.
He was "standing at the end of the pew with a gun. I turned the other way. My wife was on the other side. I pushed her down on the seat and bent over her because I thought she was going to get shot. Then I felt the shot going into my back."
Mr O'Toole said that at the time he did not recognise the man. "He shouted something like, `You're dead, you bastard.' I'll never forget the sight of him standing there pointing the gun at me."
When the incident ended, Supt Albert Treacy of Santry Garda station said one of the Garda's first concerns was to organise group counselling for the group of more than 60 children who witnessed the shooting.
"We were conscious, as a result of the Dunblane tragedy, that if the children were counselled together in one group it would be more effective." However, it had been difficult to get all the children together in the panic that followed.
"Some children were still crying last night. We will be trying to organise some kind of group counselling," he said.
Supt Treacy praised community gardai Joe Everard and Jack Gildea, who caught the man. Garda Everard was sitting in a patrol van near St Joseph's when children ran up screaming.
He jumped out of the van, followed by Garda Gildea. A number of men, led by Mr Lar O'Toole, had chased the gunman from the church. The men stopped when Mr O'Toole was also shot.
The man turned and pointed the gun, which was still loaded with at least one bullet, at Garda Everard, according to a senior Garda source. Garda Everard "talked him into handing over the gun", the source said. The crowd then attacked the man. "Only for Joe Everard, that man would have been kicked to death. He put him on the ground and stood between him and the crowd."
The gunman wore a baseball cap and dark glasses and was carrying a knapsack, containing a change of clothes. He is believed to have been armed with two knives as well as an automatic pistol. Gardai were waiting to interview him last night in Beaumont Hospital where is is under armed guard, suffering from a fractured skull.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, described the shooting as "sacrilege".
