The hit attempt on gangster Derek McLoughlin may be linked to the murder of a man three years ago.
McLoughlin (48), who was a close associate of Eamonn ‘the Don’ Dunne, was in a car park at the Castle Shopping Centre in Swords when a gunman walked up to him and pulled the trigger twice around 11.30am on Tuesday morning.
He had been at the Image Health and Fitness Centre before getting into his car when a people carrier pulled up beside him and the gunman got out.
Luckily for McLoughlin the would-be killer’s gun jammed and he was unable to fire any shots.
McLoughlin tried to run over the hitman after he fired the shots but he managed to flee the scene.
The gunman was spotted waiting around outside shops near the gym for two days before the hit attempt. Witnesses said he looked foreign.
McLoughlin, originally from Ballymun, was a close pal of Dunne who was shot dead in Cabra in 2010.
The gangster, who was hit with a €600,000 bill by CAB in 2010, is not cooperating with gardai over the incident but detectives are examining a number of lines of inquiry.
Sources say they are sceptical that the hit attempt was carried out by the Real IRA but they are not ruling it out.
Gardai are also examining any links to a hit attempt on Sean Enright the day after the attack on McLoughlin.
Another line of inquiry is that associates of David Thomas were responsible.
Thomas was shot dead by Dunne’s gang in Finglas in 2009. Back in 1998 Thomas killed the Don’s associate Brian O’Reilly’s brother David following a row in a pub.
Thomas later shot and injured two gardai after barricading himself into a flat in Dublin’s inner city. He claimed he believed associates of O’Reilly were trying to kill him.
Several associates of Dunne have been targeted by the Real IRA since his death including veteran gangster Eamon Kelly who was shot dead near his home in Killester last December.
