Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has said a project aimed at helping families being intimidated over drugs debts is succeeding, with the Government saying the scheme could be expanded across the country.
The commissioner said more was being done to help families threatened by drug dealers, often targeting a family over relatively small debts accrued by other members of the family and which in the past may have been written off.
"Intimidation has been ongoing since God’s time and the real issue is to have the trust and confidence in the guards to come to the guards," he said.
The commissioner said there were "ways and means" of working around issues such as confidentiality and fear of being ostracised, but said he could not discuss the details of "highly sensitive and highly dangerous" situations for some people.
"There are certain areas where certain activities are heightened regarding drug activity and it is those areas we are targeting in terms of trying to bring about a resolution."
He made his comments at the launch of a Dial to Stop Drug Dealing campaign at the Donore Youth Centre in Dublin’s south inner city.
At the same event, junior minister Roisin Shortall said intimidation of families by drug dealers was "a particularly worrying aspect" and that the operation by the Garda National Drugs Unit was being monitored.
Source: Noel Baker, Irish Examiner, 23/05/12
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