I arrived back from work that evening to the sight of a detective sitting on the couch with his notebook and pen, asking about our movements that morning. The car had been abandoned soon after 9am. I had left the house three hours earlier (apologies for shattering the notion of hacks lounging in bed till noon). To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the area saw the killers. Or at least nobody admitted to doing so.

On other mornings, I would have passed the spot where the car was abandoned, around the time that these men . . . there were believed to be two of them . . .

set the car alight. En route to the bus stop, I may well have been in a position to identify the pair. I've often wondered about that.

Over the last year or so, senior politicians have lectured that we all have a role in tackling so-called gangland crime, particularly any citizens who may be able to help the gardai. What if I had been in a position to do so?

If a prosecution followed, I would have been a crucial witness. A guilty verdict would have delivered a fleeting blow against gun crime and, in all likelihood, the judge might have noted the performance of my citizen's duty. Hero for a day.

Then I would have looked for a job on the Uzbekistan Daily Post following the relocation of me and my family under the witness protection programme. And we might live happily ever after, apart from the constant glancing over my shoulder. But at least I would have done my citizen's duty in the fight against organised crime.

Alternatively, if I identified these fellas in the immediate aftermath, but, upon mature reflection, realised what I had let myself in for, I might well have ended up in conflict with the law. If I failed to remember during a trial, a charge of obstruction of justice might follow. Instead of having my life ruined by criminals, the law may have driven me half crazy.

Such are the onerous duties which citizens can be called on to perform in tackling crime. The citizen might be an innocent bystander, or he or she could be a figure on the periphery of organised crime, willing to do the state some service for whatever motive.

In such an environment, it would be reasonable to expect that our leaders would act with a smidgen of bravery themselves, eschewing naked self-interest for the greater good of tackling organised crime. They ask us to do it.

Could they not do it on a simple, relatively painless basis? Not on your life.

Over the last few weeks, the full extent of the cowardice of politicians in the main parties has been glaring. The Criminal Justice Bill going through the Houses of the Oireachtas is being sold as an instrument to tackle gun crime. Anybody who works at the front line will tell you that is a bad joke.

The provisions which will erode basic liberties are far more likely to lead to miscarriages of justice involving desperate petty criminals or totally innocent people. But few politicians have the guts to shout stop. Most are simply petrified that any opposition they offer will be used as a stick entitled "soft on crime".

The political imperative is to be seen to be doing something, anything. Likely consequences are not considered, in case something distasteful is thrown up. It's cowardly, cynical, and in the case of some of the main offenders, simply dishonest.

Nobody at the cabinet table had the balls to rein in Michael McDowell. Nobody in Labour or Fine Gael could bring themselves to do the right thing for fear of a silly jibe that might, in the most extreme of cases, resonate with a slice of the electorate.

It was left to 140 barristers and the Law Society to step into the breach and offer a desperate bulwark for basic democratic freedoms.

And these politicians demand that the rest of us do our duty by the state? Some neck. Some chancers.