Gardai will face down gangland threat after latest murder, vows Minister

Jason Molyneaux, 27, was shot several times in the body in an attack in the James Larkin House flat complex off North Strand at about 9.45pm on Tuesday night.

His murder took place 10 days after Derek Coakley Hutch, also 27, was shot dead outside Cloverhill Prison in west Dublin in a killing linked to the bloody Kinahan-Hutch feud.

Locals reported how "Buda" Molyneaux had been at the removal service for Hutch in the north inner city in the hours before he was shot.

A number also suggested he would have been carrying the coffin at the funeral at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean McDermott Street.

Mr Flanagan condemned the killing.

"There is no place for such activity in a civilised country," he said.

"The Gardai have faced down such criminal threats in the past and will do so now and well into the future."

Fianna Fail justice spokesman Jim O'Callaghan said 15 gangland killings in 27 months showed the Government was losing the fight against gun crime.

"It is apparent that gun violence has become all too prevalent among the brazen gangs who place little or no value on human life," Mr O'Callaghan said.

Molyneaux, who had scores of convictions and is understood to have been told his life was under threat, was taken to the Mater Hospital after being shot but was pronounced dead.

He was shot by a suspected lone gunman dressed in black who fled the scene on foot.

A white Renault Kangoo van, registration number 10-D-126064, was found burnt out near the East Link Bridge in the early hours of the morning.

It was located close to the walkway on to York Road, just after the bridge.

Councillor Nial Ring, who works in the area, raised concerns about the impact gangland murders were having on young children.

"It has added to the tensions. Within 100 yards of where that man was shot kids are going to schools, passing a crime scene of where another man was shot in the north inner city," he said.

Superintendent Gerard Murphy said: "We need the help of the community to assist us."

It is understood Molyneaux had one son and lived across the road from where he was shot.

Hutch's murder was linked to the family's feud with the Kinahan gang in which 14 people have died.