The usual suspects

Despite Gardai's efforts, gunmen have never faced justice

- BY PAUL HEALY Crime Correspondent

TEN years on from the Regency Hotel murder, the main perpetrators have never been caught.

Following the acquittal of Gerry Hutch in 2023, the Director of Public Prosecutions ruled there would be no further charges levelled against anyone named in a complex Garda file.

That decision has effectively ended the investigation into the Regency shooting - unless some new evidence comes to light.

Officers worked meticulously for several years to try and identify those involved in the audacious attack, while the Kinahan cartel shot first and asked questions later.

Although to this day the gunmen have still not been brought to justice, the finger was pointed in one way or another at these 12 people.

Some were convicted, others acquitted, while others on this list were targeted by a cartel which blamed them - without waiting for the evidence.

1) GERRY 'THE MONK' HUTCH: Acquitted of being one of the gunmen dressed as gardai

Gardai began to suspect the involvement of Gerry Hutch in the Regency Hotel murder of David Byrne almost immediately. The Garda National Surveillance Unit (NSU) was on top of Hutch in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.

They tailed him to the home of Jonathan Dowdall and tracked their journeys up North in the weeks that followed.

The NSU bugged Dowdall's vehicle and secretly recorded around 10 hours' worth of conversations between the two men as they journeyed to meet dissident republicans on March 7, 2016. In the tapes the men can be heard discussing the "three yokes (later accepted to be a reference to the rifles used in the Regency shooting).

And Hutch could be heard saying he wanted to bring them up North as a "present" to dissidents.

That tape would form the basis of the State's case against Hutch when he was put on trial, accused of the murder of Byrne, in 2022.