Ardee bullied into silence: Gangsters?

The people in Ardee, Co. Louth are silenced and afraid to speak out. The question is Why? Maeve Sheehan touched on it yesterday in the Sunday Independent. After speaking personally with people in Ardee, last week, I can now actually concur with what Maeve has written about. A certain drug dealer and his cronies, with dissident Republican links, have silenced the small town of Ardee. In the year 2018, the Gangsters continued to run their business without fear of Gardai or the State. My question today is:- We have some serious Security interests that must be tackled in this country. Gangland in the inner city and Spain, between the Hutch and Kinahan feud, has taken 18 lives. It is hard to believe that Ireland, a country so small, has one of the highest rates of murder in Europe and beyond. Yet, the Government seem to have no motivation or drive to tackle this problem. Asst. Commissioner Pat Leahy, a fairly decent policeman bluffs his way on RTE and through media circles stating that our Police Force has a handle on organised crime. Well sorry Pat, just like the fake breath tests, the figures do not add up. If Leahy is serious about tackling organised crime then we need the serious crime squad in Ardee urgently to help the local police there and also maybe a little information from the SDU in an Garda Siochana. Again I repeat an Irish town can be silenced by thugs and drug dealers – where is Ireland going to as a State to bring up young children?

Yes, the Year of the Gangster sadly is back for all the wrong reasons. Let us not forget Senator Michael McDowell and his famous words in 2007 “I have gangland beaten into the ground – the last sting a dying bee’. Well sadly and with the highest respect to Michael since 2007 we can roughly say we have had 75 more murders across the country in relation to drugs and gangs and I advise Michael that he should avoid the hobby bee-keeping!

Back to Ardee, this young man, from a decent family, attending College, gets a call on his phone; he is baited to a park and murdered in a most heinous fashion. People in Ardee know or let me put this another way – they have the information that will help solve this murder and the terrible loss of a young life and this may help the family find some closure, yet they are intimidated into complete silence by drugs and thugs. Now, if I was an adviser to Charlie Flanagan, Minister for so-called Justice, this would be at the top of my priority list, and the reason is simple if these thugs can silence Ardee, where next?

Fine Gael down the years were the party the media called for Law and Order. Now it appears they are a party of Pink and Wink and not forgetting the Canadian Mounties.

To be continued.