This will not be a political runner in my lifetime but if you control and regulate the sale of drugs you eliminate the huge profits these gangs make.

"We also need an extensive witness protection programme and I believe that there are people in criminal gangs who want out or are afraid of getting shot themselves.

"Criminal gangs are held together by loyalty which is based in fear, and a witness protection programme would eliminate that fear and help to break up these gangs. It would cost 2m per witness on the programme but it is worth paying as you only need a few witnesses to sow distrust within gangs.

"Also, when the IRA was a serious threat, it was sufficient to convict a person of membership if a garda chief superintendent went into the Special Criminal Court and said that he believed a person was a member and was able to give some corroborating evidence to back that up. Could we not have the same legislation in place for these gang members? I think we are sufficiently in a crisis situation that that could be considered."

Senator Tom Morrissey, chairman of the PDs "The gardai's emergency response unit was virtually living in Finglas and they were not able to put Hyland behind bars.

"I think that special powers should be introduced in the Special Criminal Court to put these criminals away. I would not stop at anything, whether it is the enactment of special powers or whatever it takes.

"The middle classes who are taking recreational drugs are fuelling the fire. These people need to realise that they are playing a part in the murders.

They are supposed to be the responsible people in society and they have to act in that way. It is not OK to dabble at a party at the weekends without realising they are fuelling this fire."

Tony Geoghegan, director of the Merchants Quay Project "I am always a bit wary at times like this when I hear people talking about more radical measures to curb the drug trade.

After there has been a spate of killings, there tends to be a kneejerk reaction to these killings.

"We have had a lot of criminal justice responses and it has not yielded a reduction in the availability of drugs and the number of people taking them."

Eoin Ryan, former minister of state with responsibility for the National Drug Strategy "People argue that the legalisation of drugs would eliminate criminal gangs but nobody really knows what the knock-on effects of legalising drugs are. We cannot send out the message that it is OK to take drugs as we don't know where it will end up.

"Gangs are becoming more dangerous and more ruthless and a lot more resources are going to have to go into it tackling crime.

"We brought in mandatory sentencing and it is not happening. Judges have to realise that a lot of these people are dangerous as there doesn't seem to be long enough offences for people involved in criminal activity."