The head of the Catholic Church in Dublin has said that priests may refuse to provide funerals for Dublin crime gangs.

Speaking on RTE Radio One's 'Morning Ireland' programme, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin criticised the increase in demand for 'show funerals' which, he says, are used to demonstrate the wealth of certain individuals.

Dr Martin claimed that the funerals were funded with drug money and worried that they may inspire younger people to enter a life of organised crime.

"It’s a Catholic thing that these people, when it comes to one of their major people being damaged, that they go for a show funeral.

"The thing about these show funerals is that the very young people, that we are trying to keep out of this sort of thing, will be attracted by this.

"Secondly, who pays for a show funeral? It’s the same drug money."

The archbishop said that although the church would continue to conduct normal service, priests must use their 'pastoral tact' to refuse demands they deem to be inappropriate for the mass.

"We will provide, and do provide, religious services for the family of the bereaved but will not have gatherings of the comrades of these people to be able to show off.

"Priests everyday are dealing with families who are bereaved and they have to say to people, 'look this song would be inappropriate for a funeral'and people accept it.

"But if people say no we want to do something different, we can say 'please that isn’t suitable, go somewhere else'.

"Priests have to do it by their good pastoral tact. If people are insisting on things that go beyond the solemn arrival of the remains of the church.... then the entire church will have to say simply, no this isn't appropriate."

Dr Martin's comments came after a string of shootings in Dublin. Most recently, the shooting Noel Boylan outside a Lidl supermarket in West Dublin on Saturday. Boylan was shot twice in the arm and chest.

Last March his son, Lee Boylan (24) was left paralysed after suffering life-altering injuries when a gunman shot him while he was sitting in his van on Blakestown Road, west Dublin.

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"It was an unprecedented level of depravity, I just think of the impact that it has on children who watch a shooting and the scars that that will carry for their lives," Dr Martin said.

"It’s all being done by people who are just trying to secure their own wealth by exploiting young people, putting young people through the sale of drugs, dragging young people, weak young people into their clutches so that it is almost impossible for them to get out.

"I think that the local community leaders should be gathering the community to talk about that, I believe that people should be encouraged to reach out to the Gardaí, going to the Gardaí isn’t something that requires just courage it’s basic decency.

"People are stunned by the level of violence, it’s very hard to think of somebody shooting outside a shopping centre, if that happened inside of a school in the United States it would be all over the world," concluded Dr Martin.

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