Detectives investigating the murder of Michael Gallagher at his home in Tallaght last January say it is a "complete mystery" as to why he was killed.

Garda� have spent two months probing every aspect of the background of the father-of-five and say there is absolutely nothing to suggest that somebody wanted him dead.

They believe that he was the intended target of the attack and that it was not a case of mistaken identity.

Gallagher and his partner, Sally Rogers, were watching TV in the living room of their house on Tymonville Road at around 10pm on 18 January when there was a knock at the door.

Sally Rogers answered it and was confronted by two men armed with a knife and hammer. She was attacked with the hammer by one of the men and received minor wounds.

The second attacker chased Michael Gallagher into the kitchen and stabbed him repeatedly before fleeing the scene on foot.

He suffered serious injuries but was alive when an ambulance arrived minutes after the incident. The painter and decorator died shortly after arriving at Tallaght Hospital.

Ms Rogers had been involved in a relationship with the dead man for a number of years and had five children from a previous relationship.

She has given garda� a limited description of the two men, as has a neighbour who saw them running from the scene.

She is said to be extremely traumatised over Gallagher's murder, has not returned to the house since the incident and is unlikely to ever move back in. It is thought that she is staying at her daughter's house in the Tallaght area.

One garda source said: "This murder really is a complete mystery and there are a lot of unanswered questions. We do not know why Mr Gallagher was murdered. He didn't have any enemies that we know of.

"We are as satisfied as we can be that he was the intended target. He was chased around the kitchen and the attack was a wild one. It seems like he was certainly singled out but we don't know why. It is hard to mistake a 60-year-old man for somebody else, especially if you're stabbing him repeatedly.

"Nobody has been able to shed any light on it at all. It is baffling but we are putting a lot of effort into the murder enquiry and will continue to do so."

Michael Gallagher was originally from Mohill, Co Leitrim. Garda� and his friends have described him as a friendly, gentle man who was popular with everybody and had no obvious enemies. He had never come to the attention of gardai and worked as a painter and decorator around Dublin. He had been married on two occasions.