KEN FOY CRIME CORRESPONDENT – 06 SEPTEMBER 2013 02:30 PM
GARDAI have not been allocated even one additional hour of overtime to investigate Dublin's latest gangland murders.
The shocking gun slayings happened just five days apart in west Dublin last month – but so far there have been no arrests.
Jason Carroll (39) was murdered on Thursday of last week and Dean Johnson (21) was shot dead 13 days ago.
But sources say the investigation teams have been hampered due to a lack of overtime resources.
A senior source explained: "It should be no surprise to anyone that there have been no arrests – the investigation teams have been told that they cannot take a single hour of overtime as they try to solve these cases.
"This is an unprecedented and frankly ridiculous situation for the gardai dealing with these two murders."
The source explained that there is "no money left in the garda budget for overtime in these cases or any other for that matter.
"There can be no doubt that the situation is compromising the investigations – it is destroying continuity," the source said.
"For example, if you have a detective who has been in the middle of the investigation for a number of days, when his four days off work come up, he is off and that is the end of it until he comes back to work. When he gets back five days later, the investigation has moved on.
"There is huge frustration within the force and this is all about not getting enough resources from the Department of Justice – this is a new situation and not a good one."
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Both shootings happened in the Clondalkin area and gardai have established that they are linked to each other.
Senior sources say that gardai are now satisfied that the first shooting victim, Dean Johnson, was not the intended target and that he was shot dead by mistake instead of a notorious criminal who he had been socialising with earlier on the night of August 23.
The intended target is a Clondalkin-based criminal who is the chief suspect for the unsolved murder of a young man called Dean Johnston (not related) who was shot dead in May 2011, in Neilstown.
Sources say that associates of this "extremely violent criminal" then organised the murder of Jason Carroll after he blamed Carroll for trying to shoot him in the gun attack that claimed Johnson's life.
Jason Carroll was shot six times with a high-powered handgun outside his home in Cherrywood Drive at around 10.30pm last Thursday.
Carroll, who was strongly linked to a number of serious criminals, was an extremely close friend of Daniel Kinahan – the son of the leader of Ireland's biggest and most dangerous drugs syndicate, Christy Kinahan.
It is not known if Daniel, who is based in Spain's Costa-Del-Crime, will attend Carroll's funeral tomorrow.
Gardai are braced for further bloodshed at the weekend after receiving reports that Carroll's faction are intent on a bloody revenge.
But the criminal who organised his murder is believed to now be in hiding at a rural location.
Meanwhile, it emerged last month that there would be fresh garda cutbacks, which were signalled to garda management by the Department of Justice.
They were brought in as part of a drive in the public service to find €1bn in savings under the Haddington Road Agreement.
Garda management is hoping the deal negotiated with the rank-and-file Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors will help to offset some of the cuts.
Concessions include members of the force up to the rank of inspector working 30 hours a year without pay instead of sustaining a wage cut implemented on more senior ranks.
