A Garda superintendent in Dundalk has warned that if so called punishment beatings do not stop someone may be killed. Supt Michael Staunton was commenting after a 20 year old man was attacked on Thursday night by four masked men.
There have been a series of such assaults in the town in the last year.
The latest victim is believed to have been assaulted in the sitting room of his home in the Muirhevnamore estate by men armed with iron bars and baseball bats.
He suffered a broken arm and lacerations and was yesterday being detained in the Louth County Hospital, Dundalk. Supt Staunton warned "the risk is that if they continue there is the ever growing possibility that somebody will receive a fatal blow and there will be the ultimate tragedy."