Gardai in Dublin are still appealing for witnesses after a man in his 50s was found lying on a footpath in the Kilmainham area of the city early on Sunday morning. He was suffering from serious head injuries after being attacked and robbed.
The man was taken to Beaumont Hospital, where he underwent surgery. i said. Gardai are also investigating two shooting incidents in the Finglas area of Dublin late on Saturday night.
It is unclear whether the incidents were related.
In the first attack, two youths were shot and injured at around 11 p.m. The gunman fired a sawn-off shotgun at them in a garden at Cardiffsbridge Avenue.
The two were taken to the James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown, where they were treated for pellet wounds.
Gardai said their injuries were not life-threatening.
Not long after this incident, a gunman jumped from a van in nearby Cardiffsbridge Road, Finglas, and shot at a man who dived for cover and was not hit.
He was reported by gardai to have run after the van - and was fired at a second time. When the gunman failed to hit his target, the van drove off.
Early on Sunday, a woman was treated for shock following the petrol-bombing of her house on Blackhorse Avenue, off the North Circular Road in Dublin.
A window was damaged and the front door was scorched, the gardai said.
They believe it was a case of mistaken identity and that the petrol-bombers had attacked the wrong house.
Three men were arrested for questioning and taken to the Bridewell Garda station.
They were released without charge and a file is being sent to the DPP.
In another incident in Dublin over the weekend, a man was shot in the stomach early on Sunday at Caledon Road in the North Wall area of the city. He was taken to hospital.
His injuries are not life-threatening.
Gardai are continuing their investigations.
"An urgent response from the Minister for Justice to the upsurge in violent crime is needed," Labour Party spokesman Mr Brendan Howlin said last night.
It "beggars belief", said Mr Howlin, that there were fewer gardai on the streets than four years ago.
The spate of attacks over the weekend should shake Government complacency on this issue, he said.
What was needed was not rhetoric, but a comprehensive response to the growing incidence of violent crime.