Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I would like to follow up on what Deputy Durkan has spoken about. Obviously, drug dealing happens from privately rented and privately owned houses, and houses that are owned by approved housing bodies. There is a particular issue with local authority housing owing to the lack of power the council may have to deal with this. Every two-bit drug dealer has seen "The Wire". They are not as stupid as we might think them to be. They can keep operating for much longer. At times they would have less pressure on them if they had a greater level of discretion. Sometimes they like to do it in the face of the community surrounding them. I have dealt with multiple issues like this. We need to review how we deal with these circumstances and how we assess the dangers for people. There are particular issues where families have a considerable number of children, which makes it more difficult. The only time that I have seen people evicted is when it is a single person who is caught red-handed selling drugs in the house. It is an issue we need to look at.

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