KINAHAN NEVER SAW HIT COMING

MOB boss Daniel Kinahan did not believe he was under any threat on the day of the Regency Hotel attack, a former top garda has said.

- BY MICHAEL O'TOOLE AND PAUL HEALY

Former Garda Assistant Commissioner Michael O'Sullivan today defends the Garda intelligence around the time of the shooting, which occurred 10 years ago this week.

"The Kinahans had a better criminal intelligence system than the guards and they didn't know. They'd never set foot in this country if they thought there was a problem. They didn't think for one second that there was a problem with anyone," Mr O'Sullivan said in an exclusive interview.

The experienced former garda, who headed the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, said he's aware many people ask why gardai were not keeping watch on the Kinahans - especially in light of an assassination attempt on Gerry Hutch in Lanzarote just months before as well as the murder of Gary Hutch in Spain in September 2015.

Speaking to this paper's podcast Shattered Lives, which will be released tomorrow, Mr O'Sullivan said: "People look back with hindsight and say, 'Oh well, Gerry Hutch, somebody tried to shoot him and therefore when the Kinahans came over, you'd know that was going to happen'. Absolutely not.

MURKY

"The Kinahans didn't know. They were coming over to enjoy themselves, to party. They didn't think for one second that there was a problem with anyone." We put it to Mr O'Sullivan that it has since been widely reported there was an attempt to murder Kinahan at the Red Cow Inn in Dublin in November 2015, two months after the cartel had killed Gary Hutch. We asked how, with the benefit of hindsight and these events which preceded the Regency, that gardai did not see the hit coming.

"I can turn it the other way. With all of those events... the Kinahans knew more about who tried to shoot them in the Red Cow than the guards did," Mr O'Sullivan said.