Damage to the caravan at the targeted house on the Belgard Road in Tallaght

Damage to the car at the targeted house on the Belgard Road in Tallaght

An 11-year-old Dublin boy is recovering in hospital today after being shot at his home.

The young boy was hit with a shotgun blast after a group of thugs smashed up the house where his family live on the Belgard Road in Tallaght.

The shocking incident happened when the men drove into the grounds of the house after 2.30am on Saturday morning and started smashing the windows and doors of the detached bungalow.

As the family fled, they were confronted by the gang who then turned a gun on them and opened fire, gardai believe.

The 11-year-old was expected to undergo surgery last night after being shot in the arm.

A female relative described what happened.

"We were all asleep when we heard banging and things breaking at nearly three o'clock. We ran out and the children followed us and then there was shooting," the witness told the Herald.

"Then the men with the weapons scattered in different directions," she added.

Gardai in Clondalkin are investigating the incident.

The boy was taken by ambulance to Tallaght Hospital to be treated for pellet wounds to his left arm, but was later transferred to Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.

"He has around 15 pellets in his arm and needs surgery to get them out," his relative said.

A man related to the boy was also injured in the attack when he got a chemical in his eye.

It is unclear how this happened but he was being treated at the Eye and Ear Hospital on Adelaide Road.

SMASHED

The family said that the attack on their home was the second in two nights, and that in an earlier incident three caravans parked beside their house were smashed up.

A young man who was at the house yesterday said his car was also attacked and badly damaged.

All the windows in it were broken and the bodywork badly dented.

The house was left with barely a window intact.

Broken glass was scattered all over the yard and a pane of glass in the patio door was completely smashed.

The front door of the house was also broken.

The family has now fled and told the Herald they cannot move back to it.

"We're in fear of our lives, we can't go back," the distraught woman said.

She said she did not know why they would be targeted in such a way.

"There was around five children in the house. It was terrifying," she explained.

In a separate incident just two hours later two men received serious wounds when they were set upon by a group of men that arrived at Lynch's Lane in Balgaddy.

Gardai at Ronanstown are investigating that attack in which two brothers aged in their 30s or 40s received gruesome slash injuries.

They were attacked with weapons thought to be slash hooks.

One man had his wrist badly cut as he tried to defend himself against the attack.

The second man received a cut two inches deep and 12 inches long across his shoulder blade.

Both men were taken to Tallaght Hospital for treatment.

cfeehan@herald.ie

Online Editors