The brother of Shane Coates, the former leader of Dublin's Westies gang who was buried last week, has called for "much longer" jail terms for those involved in the drugs trade and gun crime.
Christian Coates told The Irish Times he believed the Republic's education and criminal justice systems were failing people like his murdered brother. These failings were in turn putting the safety of the rest of Irish society at risk. "Anybody caught with drugs should get a long sentence, life," he said.
"And the same goes with anybody caught with guns. You should expect to get life. Anybody who's caught with a gun is intending to do damage with it or to give it to somebody who is going to do damage.
"Guns and drugs are destroying whole sections of the community and the jail terms should be longer. But they should get an education based sentence."
Mr Coates is an immunology researcher at Trinity College Dublin's Institute of Molecular Medicine.
He believes by the time his brother was jailed for attempted armed robbery in the late 1990s his life of crime had progressed too far to be turned around. He also believes his brother's experience in jail left him with little respect for human life.
"There is no point in putting young criminals in jail with older guys because they just learn from them. They should be in an institution of their own. But most of them need to be caught way before that, while they are still young and in school." He believes his brother, a father of three, encountered figures in the educational system who were not trained to spot the early warning signs in his erratic and violent behaviour.
"So Shane clashed with them and dropped out of school. He started hanging around bonfires drinking, then robbing cars and from there it just all progressed."
Shane Coates's remains were repatriated to Dublin from Spain last week. Another leading member of the Blanchardstown-based Westies gang, Stephen Sugg, was murdered with Shane Coates in Spain in January 2004. His remains were also repatriated last Wednesday.
The two men, who were heavily involved in the drugs trade, were shot dead near Alicante in Spain by a rival Irish drug dealer based in the region. They were buried under concrete in an industrial estate.
Their bodies were found 12 months ago after gardaí received intelligence as to the location of the grave and passed it on to the Spanish authorities. The men had fled Ireland in 2003 after being involved in a shoot out with gardaí and as rival criminals were plotting to murder them. However, within months of arriving in Spain they had been shot dead.
"The gardaí came to get DNA samples from us at the start to help identify Shane but we've heard nothing at all from the Spanish about the case."
An Irish man has been charged with the killings but has since been released on bail in Spain.
