Vol. 465 No. 3
194 Mr. E. Byrne asked the Minister for Justice the plans, if any, she has to establish a special task force to co-ordinate the investigations into the recent spate of so-called gangland killings; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9817/96]
All murders are fully investigated by the Garda and every possible effort is made to bring the prepetrators to justice. In this regard, the Garda allocate optimum resources to the investigation of all murders. The primary task, of course, is to identify those responsible and to assemble evidence to support the institution of legal proceedings. In addition, special attention is also directed to the motivation involved.
Crimes of this nature are investigated by divisional investigation teams, the membership of which includes detective gardaí who have been trained in the investigation of serious crime. The gardaí involved in these investigations know the local community and they work in close proximity to sources of intelligence. The divisional investigation teams are assisted by gardaí from the garda technical bureau who provide specialised services such as ballistics, photography and fingerprints.
In addition to providing assistance to the divisional units, the serious crime squad at the central detective unit has the task of gathering intelligence and information on all serious crime. Every effort is made in the examination and collation of this material to establish if the crimes are linked in any way. This includes, in the case of murder, trying to establish if there is a common perpetrator for two or more offences.
The Garda authorities are satisfied that maximum resources are deployed to solve all murder cases including the identification of possible so-called contract killers.
