More arrests likely in Aidan O'Driscoll murder investigation

Gardaí say there are more arrests in the pipeline in their investigation into the murder of Aidan O'Driscoll and that CCTV footage will be the key in.

Six recent arrests were the first in the probe into the December 7 killing in Blackpool of the former Real IRA leader, who was a dad of two young children. The six have all been released without charge and six individual files are now being prepared for the DPP.

CCTV footage gathered in the days after the murder on Old Commons Road is first being perused and is expected to be vital for any future arrests.

Investigators would not reveal whether the arrests will be in the Cork area, for operational reasons.

Aidan O’Driscoll, who had been due to marry his fiancée next month, had lived for periods in Limerick and Dublin.

Initially, gardaí were not ruling out a link in either city to his murder.

Now gardaí are focused on a falling out with old associates in Cork and all those arrested in recent weeks were in the Cork area.

The victim, who was originally from Glenheights in Ballyvolane, was on his way to a painting and decorating job in a nearby house when he was gunned down just before 5pm on December 7 on the Old Commons Road. He had just been dropped off by work colleagues minutes before the shooting.

A red Opel Astra car believed to have been used to whisk the killers away the Killeens area shortly after the murder was found burnt out just days before Christmas in a ravine in an isolated area between Nadd and Rylane. Gardai believe local knowledge was needed by the gang to organise dumping the car there.

It was only spotted by a local landowner but cannot be retrieved from the ravine because it is too deep.

The getaway car used in the murder, a silver Nissan Almera with the registration number 01 TS 1312, was in the general Blackpool area for a number of hours prior to the killing. That car was found burnt out at Redemption Road. The gunmen abandoned and set fire to a white Vauxhall Astra van, registered 99 G 12357, in Killeens after the killing, before fleeing in the waiting red Opel Astra.