SAOIRSE32

Andrea McKernon recalls a chilling meeting with Ihab Shoukri during a loyalist feud in 2002

By Andrea McKernon
Irish News
24/11/08

Ihab Shoukri would kill Catholics without compunction telling me once he had “no problem killing Catholics”.

His assertion was made during his fledgling days when he emerged as leader of the UDA’s north Belfast ‘brigade’, after his ‘brigadier’ brother Andre was jailed.

He took over the reins in 2002 when the faction based in the Westland housing estate was in a struggle for supremacy with Johnny Adair.

I met the late ‘brigadier’ in a house in the loyalist estate in the midst of the turmoil.

The 1980s development is located between the Cavehill and Cliftonville roads.

About 20 of his associates were holed up in the house, including the late Eddie McClean, a veteran Shore Road loyalist.

The house was buzzing as the occupants within had just returned from a court hearing regarding Andre Shoukri.

They were walking from room to room, none seemed to have any work to go to and they were settled in the house, appearing to feel safe in numbers.

These were the faces seen many times accompanying one or two of the brothers to their many court and bail appearances.

I had been told the address of the house which was accessed through a back door, down steps and into a kitchen.

Ihab was seated at the table drinking coffee.

He had no real experience with the media and his responses to questions early in the interview were mostly guarded.

The Westland UDA boss seemed to be in good spirits and appeared to be enjoying their notoriety.

Jokes were made about Ihab’s good looks and he assured me that he was the good-looking one between he and Andre.

I was asked if I wanted a coffee made by one of the men but I declined.

Ihab answered a few questions about his background.

He was a former pupil of Lagan College taking A-Levels.

This was the first surprise as it was the first integrated school in Northern Ireland designed to forge links between both communities.

His father Sam had been a sailor from Egypt and when the young Ihab left school he had joined the Northern Ireland civil service.

But the unremarkable background made what he was about to say about Catholics all the more chilling.

I had asked him why young men like Daniel McColgan, murdered as he went to work in Rathcoole postal sorting office, and Gavin Brett, a Protestant 19-year-old gunned down as he spoke to his Catholic friends, were being killed as tensions within loyalism ignited.

“Well Johnny Adair has been running round killing Catholics,” he said.

“Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem killing Catholics but the problem is every time Johnny Adair kills a Catholic, three or four of my men are off the streets.”

His blatant sectarianism was raw. Killing Catholics was a means to an end in the game for top dog in the UDA.

Six years later, the top loyalist and older brother of Andre Shoukri would be dead.

By Alison Morris
Irish News
24/11/08

The death of Ihab Shoukri brings to an end the partnership between brothers who rose through the ranks of the UDA before causing a split that threatened to destroy a fragile loyalist truce writes Alison Morris

Friends say the Shoukri brothers showed little interest in either politics or loyalism and knew little about the history of the organisation they would go on to lead.

Born to an Egyptian father and a Northern Irish mother, they were unlikely loyalist leaders.

In an organisation that has long standing links with right wing neo nazi groups the part-Arab brothers were an unusual addition.

Often hailed as poster boys for the UDA, the brothers – muscle-bound and designer-clad – dispelled the former image of the Andy Tyrie generation to the dustbin.

Andre had been scouted by the former ‘C’ company boss Johnny Adair who thought he could mould his young protege and so gain control of a larger section of the organisation.

This plan backfired when Shoukri threw his lot in with the mainstream part of the paramilitary organisation when they expelled Adair and his supporters.

Ihab came later to the UDA, following his younger brother into the organisation, lured by promises of a lavish gangster lifestyle.

Being the leader of a UDA ‘brigade’ gave the brothers a status that they had long desired.

Andre described it as a “licence to print money”.

Racially bullied as children they were now men with power and status and access to wealth that was to later become the downfall of them both.

Andre, serving nine years for blackmail and extortion acquired a gambling habit that saw him flutter away over £1 million from the coffers of the UDA.

Ihab was to turn to drugs, both illegal and prescription, and in the end it was this habit that led to his untimely death at the age of 34.

The UDA, in the throes of transition from paramilitary to political entity, didn’t want the exploits of the brothers made public at a time when it as attempting to become “respectable and electable.”

In 2006, after a number of failed attempts to oust the Shoukris, the UDA announced it was expelling both brothers along with close associate Alan McClean.

The organisations South East Antrim faction failed to back the move leading to a split and tensions which are still simmering, albeit gently, to the present day.

The north Belfast loyalist’s life could have taken a much different path.

Educated in Lagan College and later the Boys Model school Ihab achieved respectable grades in both his GCSEs and A levels and briefly considered attending university.

Polite, softly spoken and well mannered the brothers had been brought up alone by their mother Katie following death of their father in a car crash.

A respected figure in the loyalist Westland estate Katie, who is involved in cross-community and interface work, was known to dote on Ihab.

During his recent court appearances for membership of the UDA she was often in the public gallery of Belfast’s Laganside Court to support her son.

During breaks in the court proceedings Ihab would make a point of telling this reporter he was innocent of the charge claiming he was a victim of political policing.

However, in the end he pleaded guilty to the membership charge which arose following a police raid on a north Belfast bar where a paramilitary show of strength had been planned.

The stand-in brigadier, elevated to the post while his younger brother was in prison, was to read a statement to the crowd of payingsupporters in the Alexandra Bar.

A previous attempt to convict the north Belfast loyalist of membership of the illegal organisation had failed in 2006 after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence.

His involvement in the 2003 murder of 21-year-old Alan ‘Bucky’ McCullough also ended without a conviction.

The young friend of Johnny Adair was promised safe passage back to Northern Ireland from Bolton by William ‘Mo’ Courtney.

He was taken from his mother’s Shankill home by Ihab and Courtney in May 2003.

He was never to be seen again, his body discovered by a member of the public in a shallow grave at Mallusk just over a week later.

He had been shot. Courtney later pleaded guilty to manslaughter after being cleared of murdering McCullough.

Since his release from prison in August Ihab had been living with his new girlfriend in Rathcoole.

During the Alexandra Bar trial the court was told that Emma Evans, a recently widowed mother of two, was a calming influence on Shoukri.

However, despite the relationship Shoukri’s drug habit continued to ruin his life.

During his short summer stint in prison he spent much of his time confined to his cell in a drug induced stupor.

Death of a loyalist

By Jim McDowell
Irish News
24/11/08

Court visit: Ihab Shoukri, right, who died on Saturday night, leaves court with Johnny Adair after seeing his brother Andre Shoukri, the then UDA ‘brigadier’ in north Belfast, in court on arms charges (PICTURE: Alan Lewis/Photopress)

To put it bluntly, Ihab Shoukri became a victim of his own excess. Just like the other UDA ‘Brigadiers of Bling’ before him.

There were four of them: Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair, the boss of the notorious C Coy of the UDA/UFF on the lower Shankill in Belfast.

Jim ‘Doris Day’ Gray, who built his own crime empire in the east of the city and the Shoukri brothers, Andre and Ihab, who both became ‘Brigadiers’ of the North Belfast Brigade of the UDA/UFF.

There is a quirk here in that these brothers, although half Egyptian, rose through the ranks of the biggest, Protestant paramilitary organisation in Ulster. There is no quirk that in doing so they became total gangsters.

Both became godfathers in the evolution of the paramilitaries – and it’s not only loyalist paramilitaries here – who morphed into the paramafia.

That is a trait, a criminal trait, they had in common with their predecessors who blatantly pranced around as ‘Brigadiers of Bling’.

All four were kicked out – ‘court-martialled’ – by the UDA’s Inner Council which still heads up that mainstream organisation.

Indeed, all were guilty – and not only, eventually, in the eyes of the UDA, but, more presciently and importantly, by the overwhelming majority of decent people in this country, Protestant and Catholic – of turning on its head that old maxim of ‘our only crime is loyalty’

Their only loyalty was crime.

One, Adair, is now in exile and living under a death sentence should he return to Northern Ireland to live.

Cocaine addict Gray was shot dead by one of his one-time closest buddies, and also lost someone close to him through the drugs he introduced him to – his own son, Jonathan (19) was found dead from a lethal drugs cocktail in a Thailand hotel surrounded by hookers.

Gray at the time was drinking in a bar downstairs.

Now Andre Shoukri, behind bars after copping a plea on a serious protection rackets scam, has lost his brother Ihab, also suspected of dying from a drugs overdose.

Both Shoukris were no friends of mine or the newspaper I work for.

Both had taken part in major UDA ‘boycotts’ of the Sunday World, in 2003 and 2005.

But those were no ‘boycotts’. Those were campaigns of terror and intimidation, against myself, my staff, and the people who advertised in, distributed and sold the newspaper.

At one stage, in August of 2005, I believe that Andre Shoukri ordered the torching of a newsagents while the staff and customers were still inside.

They were lucky to escape. That would have been murder.

And on more than one occasion, Andre Shoukri tried to inveigle me into meeting him: not least with other ‘heavies’ in a car waiting just around the corner from a bar in which I was having a pint.

I was also subjected to a tirade of abuse from him on a landline phone from a UDA office. When I told him what to do with himself, he texted me, accusing me of being ‘ignerint’ (sic) in allegedly putting the phone down on him.

He seemed surprised at that call. “How did you get my phone number?,” he demanded.

“It’s on my mobile,” I smiled. “You’ve just texted me!”

And I had the last laugh. That was during the last ‘boycott’ he had had imposed in 2005.

I put him on the front page the following Sunday, under the headline ‘Exclusive Interview: Shoukri Speaks only to the Sunday World.’

He was livid. Not for the first time. I have a thick portfolio of official forms delivered to me by the police warning me of loyalist plots to kill me.

More than a few of them emanated from the Shoukri mob or their drugs-dealing acolytes.

Little wonder. They had become ParaCelebs among their own criminal cronies and camp followers.

They not only sold drugs, they imbibed them themselves: taking a heroin-based narcotic called Nubain to bulk up their bodies as they pumped iron.

They not only prostituted their own communities with protection rackets, smuggled fags, bootleg booze, and lethal E-tabs which poisoned and, in some cases, killed kids.

They scammed their own parent organisation, the UDA, as well.

We dubbed Andre Shoukri ‘The Bookies Brigadier’ for his gambling addiction: squandering almost £1million in a year on the horses.

He didn’t like that either. But he’s now behind bars. His brother will be buried later this week.

I gloat over the death of no man. I regret more tragedy being visited on another household in this country because of the effects, and results, of paramilitaries becoming the paramafia, no matter who, or what, that family is.

Two Saturdays ago, just days after I published a book featuring the Shoukris, Ihab walked into a cafe in downtown Belfast where I was having a coffee.

He stared at me. I stared back. He said nothing.

Later, my colleague Hugh Jordan walked in. He said to Ihab Shoukri: “I see you’re now famous.”

Ihab Shoukri replied: “I’m trying not to be.”

After the tragedy that befell him at the weekend he is again in the headlines and ‘famous’: if, in death, as in life, for all the wrong reasons.

But as I said at the start, while I regret another man’s death because of the legacy of paramilitarism and the paramafia, Ihab Shoukri, like others before him, eventually became a victim of his own excess.

In short, the two Shoukris once thought of themselves as ‘The Untouchables’.

Now, one of them is incarcerated. The other is in a coffin.

Proof, if ever it was needed, that even the godfathers (of crime) are neither untouchable, nor infallible.

- Jim McDowell is Northern Editor of the Sunday World and the author of a recently published book on the Shoukris, ‘The Mummy’s Boys’.

Death of a loyalist

By Allison Morris
Irish News
**Via Newshound
24/11/08

Former UDA ‘brigadier’ Ihab Shoukri died after taking a fit brought on by a night of heavy drug use at the home of a loyalist associate in the Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey.

The death of the leading loyalist came as no shock to those who knew him best, who say he had been battling a serious drug habit for many years.

Recently released from prison the 34-year-old had spent much of his time in Maghaberry for UDA membership confined to his cell in a drug-induced state.

Since his release from prison in August, Shoukri had been living in Rathcoole with his girlfriend Emma Evans.

He was under the protection of the south-east Antrim faction of the UDA.

The young widowed mother-of-two’s late husband also died of a drug overdose less than two years ago.

Friends of the couple say they were planning to marry at Christmas.

She had accompanied him to court on each day of his recent trial for UDA membership following his arrest during a paramilitary show of strength at the Alexandra Bar in York Street.

Shoukri had been standing in as ‘brigadier’ of the north Belfast UDA at the time while his brother Andre was in prison.

He was sentenced to 15 months in prison in June after pleading guilty to membership of the organisation but with remission and time served in remand was freed within weeks.

In 2006 previous charges of UDA membership against the north Belfast loyalist were dropped after a judge ruled there was a not enough evidence to convict him.

On Saturday night Shoukri had been at the home of another leading loyalist in the Rathcoole estate to watch the Ricky Hatton fight when he collapsed.

He is believed to have died of asphyxiation, having choked on his own vomit after taking a fit brought on by excessive drug use.

Loyalist sources say that Shoukri had been snorting cocaine for most of the evening and is believed to have earlier taken a prescription heroin substitute.

Efforts to revive him at the scene proved futile.

Police say they are not treating the death as suspicious.

Andre Shoukri (31) was taken from the prison gym in Maghaberry jail yesterday to be given the news that his brother had died.

He is serving a nine-year sentence for extortion and blackmail of a north Belfast bar manager and her husband.

He has lodged an application with the prison governor for compassionate parole to attend his brother’s funeral.

The brothers were both expelled from the ranks of the UDA in 2006 along with sidekick Alan McClean amid allegations that they were siphoning off money to fund lavish lifestyles.

A failure by the paramilitary group’s south-east Antrim faction to back the move resulted in a split within the organisation.

While funeral arrangements are not yet known, the 34-year-old former UDA ‘brigadier’ is expected to be buried from the north Belfast home of his mother Katie in the staunchly loyalist Westland estate.

BBC

An armed gang has stolen a number of handguns from a weapons dealer in County Fermanagh.

Two of the guns stolen were Glock 9mm pistols

Three masked men, one carrying a shotgun, held up the dealer in Garrison at about 1730 GMT Saturday.

The robbers made off with two Glock 9mm pistols, a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, a Walther .22 pistol and five Hammerli .22 target pistols.

A dark blue Nissan Primera, believed to have been used by the gang, was found burnt out in Belleek at about 1800 GMT.

Police want to hear from anyone who saw the car in Garrison before the robbery, or saw it being driven away.

BBC

A 28-year-old man has appeared in court accused of murdering two County Armagh teenagers in February 2000.

Steven Leslie Brown, also known as Stephen Revels, is standing trial for the murders of Portadown teenagers

Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine

Belfast Crown Court was told on Tuesday that they were killed outside Tandragee after Andrew Robb made a remark about murdered UVF leader Richard Jameson.

Mr Brown, of Castle Place in Castlecaulfield, denies the murders.

Isolated road

Andrew Robb, 19, and 18-year-old David McIlwaine were driven to an isolated road where they were repeatedly stabbed. They had earlier been at a disco in Tandragee.

Forensic officers at the scene of the double murder

A prosecution lawyer, Gordon Kerr QC, said that much of the evidence against Mr Brown comes from Mark Burcombe, who was present when the teenagers were killed.

Burcombe, from the Ballynahinch Road in Lisburn, was initially charged with the murders, but pleaded guilty to conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm to Andrew Robb.

He was jailed earlier this year for two-and-a-half-years.

News Letter
25 November 2008

LOYALIST Ihab Shoukri will be laid to rest at a funeral service on Thursday, it has been confirmed.

In a death insertion in a daily newspaper, it is stated a funeral service for the 34-year-old will take place in Holy Trinity Parish Church, Ballysillan at noon.

Internment will be conducted afterwards in Carnmoney Ardeen Cemetery.

UDA sources are not expecting a paramilitary-style burial given frictions within the organisation.

Shoukri, who died suddenly at the weekend following a reported drugs overdose, was well known for his high-profile role within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

The former paramilitary godfather was jailed for 15 months in June for his part in UDA show of strength in a north Belfast bar, but was released earlier this year.

His brother, Andre, also a prominent loyalist, is currently serving a sentence in prison.

Ihab had been living in Rathcoole with his girlfriend Emma Evans, a widowed mother-of-two.

It remains unclear as to how exactly the loyalist actually died. Family and friends are awaiting post-mortem details, but it is believed Shoukri had been susceptible to epileptic fits.

_______________________

Shoukri suffered ‘epileptic fit’

News Letter
24 Nov 2008

SPECULATION is mounting as to whether UDA leader Ihab Shoukri actually died from a drugs overdose.

Questions were being asked in the hours before his friends received the post mortem details of his death.

Police have confirmed they were investigating the circumstances of the sudden death of a 34-year-old man in Newtownabbey.

It is understood there were no early signs of a suspicious death.

Shoukri was jailed for 15 months in June for his part in a UDA show of strength in a bar, but was released earlier this year.

He admitted being a member of the UDA and supporting the loyalist paramilitary organisation.

Shoukri was arrested along with five other men at the Alexandra Bar in York Street in March 2006.

The UDA leadership announced after it had expelled Ihab Shoukri and his younger brother Andre from the organisation.

The sons of an Egyptian father who married a local woman, both brothers rose through the ranks of the UDA in north Belfast.

In November 2007, Andre Shoukri was jailed for nine years for trying to extort thousands of pounds from a pub owner.

Today friends of the former paramilitary godfather - who had been ousted from the organisation and was living in Rathcoole with his girlfriend under the protection of the south-east Antrim faction of the UDA - said they believed he had taken an “epileptic fit and not a drugs overdose”.

A loyalist said: “Ihab had been in the house and had had a few beers. He watched boxing on television and then fell asleep on the sofa. They found him dead the next morning.

“I have been told from a few people who were with him that night that he did not have any drugs but people and newspapers can claim what they want now he is dead.

“His mother Katie is devastated. She is a very Christian person. It is a human loss to her and the family. People are dismissing how it affects the family.

“His death will not start a feud because Ihab had no rank and has been lying low this past while since he was released from jail.

“Andre is due out in 18 months time. He would have waited for that if he was going to bother and I really don’t think he was.”

A death insertion in a daily newspaper says Ihab Shoukri “died suddenly at home”.

The insertion is from his “darling partner Emma”, his mother Katherine, brothers Yehia and Andre. He is also remembered by his stepchildren and numerous nieces and nephews.

The insertion also advises that funeral arrangements will be released later.

Independent.ie
Tuesday November 25 2008

A licensed Northern Ireland gun dealer was held up at gunpoint and robbed of a number of weapons, it was revealed today.

Three masked men, one carrying a shotgun, held up the dealer in his shop at Main Street in Garrison on the Co Fermanagh border just before closing time on Saturday, police said.

Police are trying to establish whether dissident republicans are arming themselves. A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman said: “We are not ruling anything out at the moment.”

He said a number of guns had been stolen in raids across the counties of Fermanagh, Tyrone, Armagh and Down in the past couple of months - but this was the first time a gun dealer had been robbed.

Just last week police issued a warning to gun owners to be alert and to keep their weapons secure.

During the speedy raid the shotgun was pointed at the gun dealer who was forced to hand over a number of handguns.

The PSNI said the haul included two Gloch 9mm pistols; a Sig Saur 9mm pistol; a Walther.22 pistol and five Hammerli .22 target pistols.

A quantity of both 9mm and .22 ammunition was also taken.

The gang is believed to have made off in a dark blue Nissan Primera car which was found on fire at Fassagh Bridge in Belleek less than 30 minutes later.

Detectives appealed to anyone who saw such a car in Garrison before the robbery or noticed it being driven away or abandoned to contact them.

BBC
25 Nov 2008

Dissident republicans have issued threats to a number of north Belfast community groups because they worked with the police, Sinn Féin has claimed.

Gerry Kelly called for dissident republicans to drop their threat

Assembly member Gerry Kelly said the groups had held “multi-agency meetings to address pressing issues”.

“To have these threats made against them while they are working hard to improve people’s quality of life is contemptible,” he said.

Police said they never commented on the security of individuals.

Irish Times
25 Nov 2008

A pipe-bomb type device was discovered in commercial premises in Belfast today.

The device was found at lunchtime in the premises at Apollo Road on the huge Boucher Road retail complex in the south-west of the city.

An army bomb disposal team was tasked to the scene and took the device away for examination without having to carry out a controlled explosion.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland maintained a news blackout for over five hours until the alert was over - and then refused to say which commercial premises were involved.

The find will cause concern among police chiefs that dissident republicans are out to cause disruption in the run up to Christmas .

Fox News - USA
25 Nov 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland — An armed gang has robbed a Northern Ireland gun shop in a raid that police suspect was committed by Irish Republican Army dissidents.

Police say a gun dealer in the border village of Garrison, County Fermanagh, was held up in his shop Saturday night by three masked men. Their getaway car was found a half-hour later in the nearby village of Belleek. The car was torched, a common IRA practice to destroy forensic evidence.

Police said Tuesday that nine handguns were stolen, including two 9mm pistols and a .22-caliber.

IRA dissidents have repeatedly attacked police officers over the past year, wounding several but killing none. They have been most active in Fermanagh.

BBC
25 Nov 2008

A man has been jailed for 11 years for the manslaughter of Gerard Devlin.

Mr Devlin, a father of six, was stabbed in front of his partner and children in Whitecliff Parade in west Belfast in February 2006.

Francisco Notorantonio, 21, of Whitecliff Parade, Belfast, admitted the manslaughter of Mr Devlin.

Sentencing him Mr Justice Stephens said his offences warranted “severe punishment” to send a clear message to others involved in violence.

Four other members of the Notorantonio family were charged with affray.

Christopher Notorantonio, 53, of Whitecliff Parade, was given a one-year suspended sentence.

His 24-year-old son William, also of Whitecliff Parade, was jailed for two years, as were Paul Burns, 24, of Dermott Hill Park, and Antony Notorantonio, 50, of no fixed abode.

There was a heavy police presence in the court to separate the families in the public gallery.

BBC
25 Nov 2008

A new plastic kerbstone could have the age-old problem of tribal pavement painting finally licked.

Red, white and blue or green, white and gold kerbstones traditionally marked territory in loyalist and nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.

But an eco-friendly kerb could put paid to the practice.

Daniel Lynch from Buncrana Town Council with the new kerbstones

Party colours don’t stick to the paint resistant plastic… so the pavements remain staunchly neutral.

The Roads Service in Northern Ireland organised a trial of the new plastic in Lisburn but there has been no decision as yet about using it.

However, 15 councils in the Republic of Ireland have started installing the new kerbs.

In Donegal, the stones went down in the village of Falcarragh this week.

Buncrana is soon to follow suit.

Durakerb chief David O’Neill who has the licence for all of Ireland said his company offered an eco-friendly alternative to concrete stones.

‘Recycled’

His kerbstones - made from recycled milk cartons - could easily be cleaned, he said, a street sweeper would easily remove any layer of paint that had been put on.

Unlike their cement cousins, the kerbstones are resistant to oil, petrol and, most importantly in Northern Ireland, paint.

“The paint does not stick to them, the road sweeper would take any paint off,” he explained.

Durakerb has already laid about 30,000 metres in Ireland since they got approval in April.

Fifteen councils in the Republic of Ireland are using them.

In Northern Ireland, Mr O’Neill said a trial run had been carried out by the Roads Service in Lisburn in 2005.

He said the kerbstone was very light, weighing about 6 kgs, a major advantage compared to the traditional cement stone which is so heavy that they need to be handled by two men.

The plastic is lego like and clicks together. Its light weight makes it user friendly.

You can lay about 80 to 100 concrete kerbs a day but you can lay about 80 plastic kerbs in an hour, Mr O’Neill said.

BBC
25 Nov 2008

A new plastic kerbstone could have the age-old problem of tribal pavement painting finally licked.

Red, white and blue or green, white and gold kerbstones traditionally marked territory in loyalist and nationalist areas of Northern Ireland.

But an eco-friendly kerb could put paid to the practice.

Daniel Lynch from Buncrana Town Council with the new kerbstones

Party colours don’t stick to the paint resistant plastic… so the pavements remain staunchly neutral.

The Roads Service in Northern Ireland organised a trial of the new plastic in Lisburn but there has been no decision as yet about using it.

However, 15 councils in the Republic of Ireland have started installing the new kerbs.

In Donegal, the stones went down in the village of Falcarragh this week.

Buncrana is soon to follow suit.

Durakerb chief David O’Neill who has the licence for all of Ireland said his company offered an eco-friendly alternative to concrete stones.

‘Recycled’

His kerbstones - made from recycled milk cartons - could easily be cleaned, he said, a street sweeper would easily remove any layer of paint that had been put on.

Unlike their cement cousins, the kerbstones are resistant to oil, petrol and, most importantly in Northern Ireland, paint.

“The paint does not stick to them, the road sweeper would take any paint off,” he explained.

Durakerb has already laid about 30,000 metres in Ireland since they got approval in April.

Fifteen councils in the Republic of Ireland are using them.

In Northern Ireland, Mr O’Neill said a trial run had been carried out by the Roads Service in Lisburn in 2005.

He said the kerbstone was very light, weighing about 6 kgs, a major advantage compared to the traditional cement stone which is so heavy that they need to be handled by two men.

The plastic is lego like and clicks together. Its light weight makes it user friendly.

You can lay about 80 to 100 concrete kerbs a day but you can lay about 80 plastic kerbs in an hour, Mr O’Neill said.