Dáil debates

Thursday, 19 January 2023

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Drug Dealing

4:15 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One sentence in that proves the point that I made that more than one quarter of all drug seizures in the Kevin St. subdistrict were from the Oliver Bond complex. I did not say that gardaí are not working. In fairness, they are. There have been undercover operations. They act on the information they receive. I can tell them that if they go into H-block now, they will find a queue on the stairs waiting for delivery. When they come in, if they come in in uniform, that queue will just stand to one side and do nothing. When they leave, the operations will continue. They only need to visit a number of flats and they will find those involved in drugs shooting up, selling or whatever. It is like a drug dispensary but they are illegal drugs. Anything you want, you will find. That is the message from the drug dealers. It continues day in, day out. It was even happening on Christmas Day. There are people who have to queue up so that they can get to their own flats because they do not want to be seen to be jumping the queue and attracting the wrong attention from those who are seeking out various different drugs.

The gardaí must take action. It is only on Monday that the extra community gardaí are coming in. It is only in the last couple of weeks that the drug squad, which has been obliterated by cuts over the last number of years, has been brought up to some standard, although not even to the standard it was before. The action needs to happen and it must happen quickly. It must also then follow the drug dealers to whatever other complex they go in order that this chain is broken and no other community has to suffer, and no other child has to suffer the sights seen by the children in the Oliver Bond complex.

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