Ireland’s top criminals held a secret meeting in a Baldoyle warehouse this weekend to to discuss the ongoing dispute between crime journalist Paul Williams and the Sunday World.

Despite fulfilling his contract the Sunday World has tried to prevent Williams from taking up a job offer from the News of the World, going so far as to take out a court injunction last week. The Sunday World claims Williams is obliged to serve out a three-month notice period under the provisions of the National Union of Journalists’ house agreement. Legal sources say the situation could take months to resolve unless a financial settlement is made but in the meantime the villains of the nation are left floundering.

Paul "The Journalist" Williams

According to Brock the Gobbler, a semi-notorious Limerick hardshaw, the longer the discord continues, the worse it’s going to be for them. “This is intolerable! I demand justice for Paul Williams. What are the Sunday World thinking? What drives them to the point where they deny a man the right to make a living?”

He was supported by Anto “The Armadillo” O’Cahill, an inner-city drug dealer, gang leader, forger, occasional hitman and importer of stolen good and orphans. “It’s all well and good an’ all an’ anyway if the Sunday World stop Paul Williams from writin’ for the News of the World but nobody stops and thinks about us. Knowwarramean? We’re out there all day every day, so we are, doin’ a decent day’s criminalisin’ and if there’s nuttin in the bleedin’ paper on Sunday then you stop and ask yourself what’s the point? Knowwarramean?

And are the Sunday World thinkin’ about the young fellas? The up and comin’ lads who haven’t even got themselves a nickname yet? It’s all right for me, knowwarramean? It’s all right for ‘The Viper’, ‘The Ostrich’, ‘The Snow Leopard’, ‘The duck-billed platypus’ and ‘The Stegosaurus’ but how are these lads gonna get ahead if Williams isn’t around to give them a droll appellation? Knowwarramean? Get it sorted”.

Sources close to Williams say he is growing frustrated despite the fact his name is still appearing in headlines and he can remain more famous than the gangsters he writes about. However there are real fears that unless he finds himself gazing at the streets of Dublin from the side of a bus advertisment he may take up TV3’s offer as Mark Cagney’s sidekick on Ireland AM.