Minister for Justice Alan Shatter has described the decision by Steve Collins to leave Limerick with his family due to threats from gangs as regrettable.
Mr Collins, his wife Carmel, their sons and daughters – with their partners and children – left the country yesterday for an undisclosed destination as part of a Garda relocation programme.
The family were forced to leave Ireland because of constant threats from members of the gang behind the murder of Mr Collins’s son Roy in 2009. The father of two was shot dead in the amusement arcade he ran, which was next door to his father’s Steering Wheel pub, in Roxboro.
In a statement today, Mr Shatter said Mr Collins and his family “paid a dreadful price for the courage which they showed” in standing up to the killers.
The Minister said the Collins family required Garda protection despite the progress made in tackling gangs in Limerick. He said Mr Collins had taken the decision that leaving Ireland offered his family the best hope of a better life.
“While, for security reasons, I cannot go into any details, I can say that the State has offered and is giving him every assistance possible in giving effect to that decision,” he said. “Of course, I regret that Mr Collins had to take this decision but I fully understand it and I am sure all right thinking people will wish him and his family well in their move.”
The mayor of Limerick Jim Long said yesterday the family’s departure was a “sad day for Irish democracy”.
Life for the Collins family changed on December 19th, 2004, when Steve Collins’s adopted son, Ryan-Lee, was shot twice after refusing the 14-year-old sister of Wayne Dundon entry to the family’s pub, called Brannigan’s.
No one has been convicted of the shooting, but Wayne Dundon was subsequently jailed for seven years for threatening to kill the 18-year-old barman on the night of the attack.
The Collins family, who gave evidence against Dundon, had been threatened and pursued by the Dundon-McCarthy gang ever since. In April 2009, Roy Collins, was shot dead.
James Dillon, of no fixed abode, was jailed for life in 2010 for the killing.
