Heroin being given out for free in some city suburbs

By Dara Bradley

Drugs pushers are distributing heroin for free in city estates so that customers become hooked on the destructive drug, it was claimed yesterday.

Galway Gardaí and the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) have been urged to crackdown on city drug lords, who are “swanning around the town” in new expensive cars and showing all the trappings of wealth from illegal drug dealing but who are still in receipt of social welfare payments.

City Councillor Frank Fahy (FG) told the Galway City Joint Policing Committee yesterday of reports he had received that heroin was being distributed free of charge in housing estates on the east and west of the city. Cllr Fahy said it was “very worrying because it is very easy to get addicted to heroin”.

He also claimed that “there are known drug dealers swanning around the town in receipt of social welfare and yet have all the trappings of wealth accumulated through illegal activities such as 2011 cars”.

When challenged by committee chairman, Cllr Pádraig Conneely, to clarify his remarks and not be “bandying about” accusations without backing it up, Cllr Fahy said “the dogs in the streets know who they are”. Cllr Fahy agreed to supply the names of drug dealers who are on social welfare to Gardaí.

Galway West Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív (FF) said that “cannabis is a problem; heroin is a menace”, particularly if it spreads in areas of high deprivation. “Heroin will destroy the lives of everyone living in an estate,” said Deputy Ó Cuív, a former minister with responsibility for drugs. Cllr Neil McNelis (Lab) said heroin destroyed entire communities in inner city Dublin during the 1970s and 1980s.

Chief Superintendent Dónal Ó Cualáin, when asked to clarify, said he was not saying heroin was being given out for free but he acknowledged that free heroin was one of the methods dealers use to get drug users addicted. Chief Supt Ó Cualáin said the heroin drug problem in Galway was “transient”; and that it was “very much on top of our agenda” to ensure it doesn’t become a widespread problem.  

In relation to drug dealers claiming the dole, the Garda chief said he would not discuss individual cases. However, he added: “We’re using every resource at our disposal to pursue organised criminality”.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.