Ger Dundon (21) had been sought by gardai to begin a 10-month jail sentence since he failed to appear for a Circuit Court appeal on October 24 last. He was handed the jail term after he pleaded guilty to a total of 34 motoring offences, including illegally driving a bullet- proof and armour-plated BMW supplied by his gang, the notorious McCarthy-Dundons. Gardai believe the same outfit is responsible for the brutal slaying of Mr Geoghegan on Sunday. Dundon, of Hyde Road, Ballinacurra-Weston, Limerick walked into Limerick court offices yesterday evening. He contacted gardai and gave himself over to officers. He was last night spending his first night of a 10-month sentence in Limerick prison. Investigating officers are certain to ask Dundon if he played any role, or had any knowledge of the network behind Mr Geoghegan's killing. His arrest came just hours after Limerick came to a virtual standstill for the funeral of the latest innocent victim of the city's murderous feud. On a bitterly cold day, more than 2,000 attended the emotional funeral service while hundreds more lined the three-mile route to the cemetery. Bishop of Limerick Dr Donal Murray issued a plea for an end to the 'evil feud' between the city's gangs.
In a letter to the congregation, he said: "The death of Shane has shocked all of Limerick and beyond. This senseless killing of an innocent man, with his whole life before him, is further evidence of the futility of this evil feud, and the callous inhumanity with which it is pursued." As Mr Geoghegan's remains were carried through the city, gardai stepped up their search for the murder weapon. Yesterday morning, Ger Dundon failed to appear at a district court sitting in the city on public order offences, and a second bench warrant was issued for his arrest. He was arrested on October 13 at Mill Lane, Henry Street, Limerick and charged with offensive behaviour and intoxication -- after he allegedly urinated on a garda patrol car.
Court staff were said to be shocked when the criminal appeared before them yesterday to begin his jail sentence. But his older brother, John Dundon (28), failed to appear before Judge Tom O'Donnell yesterday. A bench warrant has been issued for his arrest. John Dundon was also charged on October 13 last of using threatening and abusive behaviour in Pineview Gardens, Moyross. His whereabouts were still unknown last night. Despite his young age, Ger Dundon has now amassed almost 50 convictions. Last August, he was jailed for nine months after he attempted to use a false passport in Cork airport to board a European flight. In April 2004, he received a three-year suspended prison sentence for possessing €30,000 worth of drugs for sale or supply. He was 15-years-old. Within four months he had committed three breaches of the Public Order Act including, on one occasion, roaring and jeering outside the St Mary's Park home of Owen Treacy -- the nephew of murdered crime boss Kieran Keane. As a result Dundon had broken his bond to keep the peace and the suspended sentence was activated in 2005. The McCarthy-Dundons have been to the forefront of crime in Limerick since the return of gang members from the UK in the late 1990s. Officers investigating the weekend murder say it is progressing well. More than 50 gardai are involved. Justice Minister Dermot Ahern yesterday reiterated his vow to wage war on the country's criminal gangs, as he promised to push resources into policing the streets and busting gangland bosses. The minister said he had secured additional money for next year to increase the allocation ringfenced to tackle serious crime -- from €20m to €21m. The budget available to the Criminal Assets Bureau has also been increased by 20pc.

The situation in Limerick,will further worsen later this year when key figures from both the main super gangs are released. Both have sworn vengeance against each other and their families.
Gardai also believe that Russell was murdered because he was suspected of murdering Gerard Byrne, 25, of Ferryman's Crossing, Dublin, who was shot dead in the IFSC on December 13, 2006. A €50,000 contract is believed to have been put on Russell's head. The north inner city feud has been underway for over two years since it emerged that a previous gang leader, Christy Griffin, had been raping and sexually abusing his partner's daughter from since she was only eight years of age. When Griffin was finally jailed for life in April last year the woman, from the Summerhill area, assumed control of his gang. She is thought to be the only woman gang leader in Ireland and is described by gardai as "highly dangerous".
Although it was initially thought last week that there had only been two murders resulting from the feud prior to Russell's killing, it has since emerged that a fourth murder, that of Paul Kelly, 26, who was shot dead outside his apartment off the Malahide Road in April last year, also stemmed from the feud. The other man to die was Stephen Ledden, 28, shot dead in Oriel Street in the financial services district in December 2006.The feud is showing no signs of abating, gardai say. It is one of nine or 10 current feuds between drugs gangs in Ireland, all of whom continue to step up their armed capacity. The Dublin gangs also continue to attempt to develop a bomb capacity. Gardai say that the two bomb makers in Dublin are showing signs of improvement and that it is "only a matter of time" before some one is killed. This followed the discovery by gardai of components for up to 20 pipe bombs in a car parked in Greenhills Road in Tallaght. The feud in Crumlin-Drimnagh, which has been going on for eight years, is now the longest and bloodiest in Dublin and has been made worse by the entry of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) into the fighting on the side of one of the gangs. The INLA is also believed to be behind the introduction of the pipe bombs. The republican terror-turned-drugs gang was once capable of constructing highly sophisticated bombs and used a tilt-switch under-car device to kill the Conservative Party spokesman on Northern Ireland, Airey Neave, in the underground car park of the House of Commons in 1979. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that since leading Dublin and Limerick gangsters have become acquainted in prison, they have formed mutual-assistance pacts where the sides supply each other with weapons and even contract killings out to each other while also assisting in drug trafficking. There is now understood to be an alliance involving the Dundon-McCarthy gang from Limerick, the south inner Dublin gang allegedly led by "Fat" Freddie Thompson, the INLA and figures from Finglas. This is probably the largest crime organisation in Ireland at present. This has exacerbated the situation in Dublin where the leader of the opposing gang, led by a man currently in Mountjoy Prison, still has use of mobile phones in the jail and is understood to be sending out instructions for people to be killed. This gang has formed an alliance with the Dundon-McCarthy's rivals in Limerick, the Keane-Collopys. Both these two "super gangs" are, however, inherently unstable. The groups forming the alliances all have their own personal agendas and vendettas underway. The INLA has been involved in what is effectively side-bar feuding in Dublin since one of its leading members, Patrick Campbell, was killed in a melee at an industrial park in Ballymount in 1999.
At least four men have been shot dead since Ballymount and gardai in Dublin say the INLA is still intent on settling scores over the matter. As some of their targets have been associates of the gang opposed to Freddie Thompson's gang, this has helped continue the eight-year-old Drimnagh-Crumlin feud. While the feuds in the north and south inner city areas remain active, garda action has, temporarily at least, stopped the blood feuding in the Finglas-Blanchardstown areas which claimed over 10 lives in the past three years. Garda arrests are the main reason for the reduction in violence in this area which culminated in the murder of former gang leader, Martin "Marlo" Hyland in December 2006. Much of the violence in the Finglas-Blanchardstown area was a result of the break-up of the once powerful "Westies" gang, whose original leaders, Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg, were assassinated in Spain in late 2003. The situation in Limerick remains as volatile as ever. A man in his forties had a narrow escape on Wednesday afternoon when he was the subject of a drive-by shooting, now the favoured form of assassination in the city. He was outside his house in Hyde Avenue, Ballinacurra West, on when the attack took place at around 4pm. Local sources said the attack was linked to one of about seven feuds, though others say that these are now not so much feuds as acts to assert the dominance of the Dundon-McCarthy gang which prompt occasional acts of retaliation.
Some of the families formerly at the forefront of the feuding with the Dundon-McCarthys are now said to be struggling to hold on in the city and their families are being subjected to daily acts of intimidation.
One of the Dundon-McCarthy allied gangs in Moyross has recruited up to a 100 teenagers who cause havoc in the area and have access to weapons.

Gardai have linked a number of bomb finds with a major feud between rival Dublin city gangs which has claimed ten lives since 2005.In one of the most significant breakthroughs, the Garda’s Organised Crime Unit discovered two grenades and a high-calibre handgun during a vehicle check in west Dublin earlier thismonth.
Aseries of recent arrests under the auspices of Operation Anvil, which targets armed crime, have led detectives to conclude that several attacks were being planned against a rival gang involving the use of firearms and grenades.
The feuding gangs are based in the Crumlin-Drimnagh area, and have been involved in bloody warfare since a row over seized drugs led to a series of accusations of information being passed to gardai and tit-for-tat killings, which have culminated in at least eight planned assassinations.
But it is the increasing use of home-made bombs by criminals involved in minor disputes which is of most concern to senior gardai. Last week alone there were three bomb finds in central Dublin, including a device left attached to the side of a car outside flats in Pimlico.
Among the concerns that gardai have is the fear that members of the public - in particular, children - will inadvertently detonate a device which they do not realise is a homemade explosive.Describing the threat from recent bombs disabled by the army’s bomb-disposal unit as ‘‘low-grade’’, security risk analyst and former Irish army ranger John Henry said the crude nature of the devices and their deployment suggested that there was ‘‘very fortunately, no significant paramilitary involvement’’.‘‘What we are seeing are really very unsophisticated devices, with none of the components used by expert bomb makers.The natural conclusion is that these devices are made from instructions from the internet,” said Henry, who is the chief executive of Specialist Security Services. ‘‘Their deployment lacks the skill or expertise of trained bomb deployment.”Henry added that this was an indication that the greatest risk of injury caused by such bombs could, in fact, be to members of the public.On a number of occasions, gardai have discovered pipe bombs left in public locations - almost certainly for collection by the criminal gangs who ordered their manufacture.Two such devices were found by a man who was walking his dog in Fairview Park in north Dublin last November. The bombs were left near bushes which are close to a Dublin City Council building and within proximity to a busy pedestrian bridge.Garda forensic experts examined the remnants of the devices after they were made safe. The detonation material was taken from fireworks while the explosive packet was made up of steel screws and bolts. As with several other finds, the bombs in this case were viable but were not primed for detonation.However, despite the poor quality of most of the explosive finds, detectives are concerned that a number of incidents last year included the use of fragmentation grenades, which are military-issue and pose a far greater risk to life than pipe bombs. The grenades most likely originated in the Balkans, though tracing their arrival here is almost impossible.So-called ‘‘frags’’ are designed to kill or maim with maximum effect by propelling fragments of their exterior shell outward at extreme force.
Frag grenades can be used to devastating effect as part of a booby-trap, when the safety pin is removed and the spring-based safety lever is held pressed against another object, such as the steering column of a car, and will not detonate until the foreign object is moved.
Gardai are deeply concerned at the possibility of high-performance military issue explosive devices being freely available to organised criminals here.In one instance, there appears to be a connection between a former INLA activist and the use of frag grenades in a dispute between Dublin-based men. However, Garda intelligence suggests that such military ordnance is not widely in circulation.
Nor is the use of crudely manufactured pipe bombs a purely Dublin phenomenon. Gardai last year discovered a series of pipe bombs outside Limerick city, which they believed were linked to one of the city’s main feuding gangs.
This was not the first time Limerick criminals were shown to have stored explosive devices for use against rivals.

small group of criminal godfathers is directing the gangland violence which has claimed the lives of 11 people in Limerick in the past eight years, a chief state prosecutor revealed last night.Limerick state solicitor Michael Murray, who has overseen landmark convictions following the murders of crime boss Kieran Keane and night-club doorman Brian Fitzgerald, said the criminal masterminds remain untouchable because a steady supply of willing lieutenants are willing to risk jail to serve them. Mr Murray said the good work of the country's leading gardai was being undone by the ready availability of disadvantaged aspiring criminals to do the dirty work for their seniors.
Up to four crimelords based in the Mid-West region are conducting the notorious gangland criminality in Limerick which has led to the violent deaths of at least 11 men since 2000 and Mr Murray describes their activities as "unrelenting". "So long as the godfathers are there, they will always manipulate the vulnerable," Mr Murray said. "The reality is the city (Limerick) is in a grip of a feud by organised groups. They are creating all sorts of problems. It is unrelenting.
"The problem really is that drugs are so lucrative, there are people at the top end that are not coming up on the radar screen and are orchestrating all of this, that is the problem. "There is no more than three or four in the Mid-Western region. They are in the background. That is their real strength, their ability to remain in the background. "Once their operatives are put out of the way, they just go around and find somebody else to put in their place," he added. The solicitor said a cross-section of all ages -- vulnerable adults and children -- were being used by senior gang members. "There has been a problem and a difficult problem for the courts to deal with. Indeed, adults who are not known to the gardai are often coerced to do things for drugs people on the basis that they are persuaded that they have no previous convictions and haven't been in the courts before," Mr Murray said.
"They are not likely to be caught first of all and even if they are caught, they are going to get a light sentence.
"Now, that has gone a step further where they are finding it is easier to manipulate young fellows on the basis that they can be persuaded -- 'you are a young fella, even if you are caught, nothing will happen to you.' I have no doubt that is happening". New legislation may be required to stem the ongoing criminality.
"The problem is in order to address that, the courts should in one sense treat the vulnerable more severely," Mr Murray said. "I suppose the theory should be that the vulnerable should be more afraid of the courts than they are of the criminals. That, unfortunately, is unpalatable in itself. It is a difficult one.
"In fairness, the guards have kept a lid on it as best they can. But it is a little bit like rolling a stone up a hill. Once it gets to the top it rolls back down and you have to start all over again."

Siezed bullet-proof BMW worth €100,000 belonging to a leading member of one of the country's most dangerous criminal gangs after a high-speed car chase.The driver of the car, who is a close relation to the vehicle's owner, was arrested following the pursuit after he failed to stop the high-performance vehicle at a garda checkpoint in Limerick city.Officers also recovered a bullet-proof vest in the vehicle. The arrested man is likely to face charges in connection with the incident.The top-of-the-range black BMW, which was fitted with bullet-proof glass at a cost of €100,000 to the owner, belongs to a leading member of the Dundon-McCarthy gang. The car owner, who is behind bars, and the arrested driver remain a target for gangs based in the St Mary's Park area of the city.The vehicle remains impounded following the high speed chase on Tuesday.The driver of the vehicle who is in his early 20s is well known to Limerick gardai investigating ongoing criminal and gangland activity in the city.He has just returned to Limerick from Spain where he was in the company of murdered Dublin criminal Paddy Doyle until days before he was shot dead. Doyle was shot dead in the Costa del Sol last week.The Limerick man who returned to the city a fortnight ago has served three years for drug dealing has openly threatened to kill opposing members in Limerick city's ongoing feud. He was released from prison last November.