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Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

'One family lost four out of five children to drug addiction'

Members of the public are being urged to report drug dealing in their area.

THE MINISTER IN charge of the national drugs strategy has called on communities to take control and report drug dealing at a local level.

Speaking to reporters earlier today, Catherine Byrne said her own community in Inchicore had been “ravaged” by drugs.

She expressed particular concern about young people who are being “sucked in” and asked to distribute drugs at local level or citywide.

“We all have a responsibility to do as much as we can to stop criminal activity, particularly targeting young people, because when you’re at a vulnerable young age – as young as 12 now – you can be targeted.”

Byrne also spoke of young people being intimidated by gangs because one of their siblings is an addict or a dealer.

“Young people who have never been involved in any kind of drugs before, any kind of issue around drugs and they may be targeted because they’re in a group of people.”

Drugs are killing an awful lot of young people in our communities. I can tell you one family in my own has lost four members of their family, out of five children this person has lost four members. There’s too many parents and grandparents rearing children now because family members have passed away of addiction and I think we need to be conscious all the time.

Assistant Commissioner John O’Driscoll, who also spoke today as Crimestoppers highlighted its anonymous ‘Dial to Stop Drug Dealing’ line, said gardaí would not have achieve many of the results they have had without the help of communities.

So far in 2016, 104 calls have been made to the confidential phone line. As a result of calls last year, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, cannabis, and firearms were seized and a number of people were charged with possession for sale and supple.

Sometimes people give information in relation to something which they think is fairly minor, but it could actually lead to a very significant results. By and large, clearly a lot of the information will relate to those who are dealing on the street. But it could be the missing link for us in getting to someone who is further up the chain.

“Remember the people who are involved in drug selling, are the people who are involved in the death, that arises from drug use, all the implications in terms of abandoned needles and social problems within the area,” O’Driscoll said.

“All these people who you read about today who are major drug dealers, started off at one time as small dealers and that is how you prevent this problem from continuing at the pace that it has developed over recent years.”

Members of the public concerned about dealing in their area, can contact the Dial to Stop Drug Dealing line confidentially on 1800 25 00 25. 

Read: Two dozen people arrested by gardaí in major drugs sweep>

Read: Man arrested after cannabis and cocaine worth €250,000 is seized>

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12 Comments
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    Mute Dunnesy
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    Aug 1st 2013, 6:57 AM

    The rates are going back up but the level of service and overall standard of the hotels have gotten worse

    107
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    Mute Trish Ni Laoire-Duinn
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:48 AM

    yes especially if you are using a pigsback voucher!

    31
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    Mute GatheringYourMoney13
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    Aug 1st 2013, 9:02 AM

    That’s impressive
    No doubt NAMA hotels probably loose €10,000 per room.

    8
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    Mute BadDrivingIreland
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    Aug 1st 2013, 7:22 AM

    As a regular hotel user, prices are going up, service is going down, hoteliers are their own words enemy.

    92
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    Mute David Keogh
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    Aug 1st 2013, 10:32 AM

    I would partially agree with you regarding hotels in Dublin City Centre. I don’t blame the staff though. The work most hotels make their staff do, along with the lengthy shifts are questionably legal at best.

    In my opinion, many Dublin City Centre hotels are actually damaging the industry with their extortionate prices. Tourists may stay once, but they wont return at those costs!

    25
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    Mute Richard Mc Dermott
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    Aug 1st 2013, 9:15 AM

    10000 profit per room and most staff on min wage with little or no rights And as a long suffering hotel worker belive me thats true in most hotels

    87
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    Mute Ashley Rowland
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    Aug 1st 2013, 9:29 AM

    Sure look at the Callaghan hotel group that tried to force some of their foreign national workers to sign up for a cut in their minimum wage telling them they couldn’t afford to pay them but at same time were spending 10,000 euro a day in the high court trying to stop unions from stopping them… Some evil folk out there that’s for sure.

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    Mute Richard Mc Dermott
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    Aug 1st 2013, 9:34 AM

    Sure half the hotels in dublin are owned by banks so no guesses were all the profits are gone into the pokets of the people who caused this in the first place

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    Mute Dave Gaughran
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    Aug 1st 2013, 10:30 AM

    Hotel workers should join a union.

    24
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    Mute Ted Carroll
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    Aug 1st 2013, 10:59 AM

    Dave, what purpose will that serve? A union can only do anything in the public sector and and even at that they do very very little. Unions have long forgotten their purpose and should be abandoned by every single worker in the public sector. Appoint people amongst yourselves to represent you and save yourself the money of funding the most ludicrous organisations in the country.

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    Mute Dave Gaughran
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    Aug 1st 2013, 11:51 AM

    The argument is simple, they shd say, we took pay cuts, pay freezes etc when the hotels were in trouble.
    Now they are making sky high profits and we want everything that was taken from us back + more.

    Yeah the top of most unions are tied to the labour party etc, but I’m not sure about going it alone, it makes a big difference to have a union organiser talk to workers, rather than just starting from scratch.

    Anyhow now a days you can join a union online, get your workmates to join the same one (in secret), and get a union organiser to meet them somewhere and take it from there.

    7
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    Mute Iam D Best
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    Aug 1st 2013, 5:57 PM

    exactly, and not just Hotels, they’d go about telling you then “ah business is slack, we’re very quiet, tourist trade is down” and so and so forth. Old Old excuses, total lies. They’ve been playing that card now for 5 years in order to cut wages, staff and feed their greedy mouths.

    4
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    Mute Iam D Best
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    Aug 1st 2013, 6:00 PM

    spot on Ashley, they’re ALL corrupt, right down the line

    1
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    Mute Niall Murray
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    Aug 1st 2013, 6:51 PM

    90% of hotels aren’t making any money, fact.
    I could name 10 hotels that people think are “flying” but all with net worth of -€5m, there is no comeback from that, they only showed retained profits of €150k max even during the good times.
    Hotels that have valued their assets upwards of €30 million but are worth nothing in today’s market, maybe 5-7m at a huge push.
    Anyone with access to CRO figures for hotels will know what I’m on about.

    Big hotels with golf clubs that are loosing 500-700k per year but the banks are not willing to move in as it will cost that to maintain the properties per year with the golf courses.

    6
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    Mute Ted Carroll
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    Aug 1st 2013, 6:59 AM

    I dislike the idea of the average hotel price included! A separate weekend/weekday average would be needed as I know that the average prices listed above for Dublin are certainly not indicative of an average weekend room rate!

    66
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    Mute BadDrivingIreland
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    Aug 1st 2013, 7:24 AM

    Also to add they now use the per person per room trick rather than room rate.

    49
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    Mute Steve Hardy
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    Aug 1st 2013, 7:07 AM

    That’s the end of the recession so, we’ve turned the corner, spread the news

    36
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    Mute Jay Thompson
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    Aug 1st 2013, 7:22 AM

    Quick everybody get a second car and a huge mortage we on d mend ha

    54
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    Mute Steve Hardy
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    Aug 1st 2013, 7:23 AM

    The editor of the Indo’s property pages just got a semi.

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    Mute Abinger Hammer
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:26 AM

    I thought he was detached.

    34
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    Mute Iam D Best
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    Aug 1st 2013, 5:58 PM

    no no, we’re still in recession, we need to cut wages more and more, we still need that excuse to line our pockets, it’s our only hope cos we’re greedy :/

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    Mute Ashley Rowland
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:19 AM

    Dublin Dublin Dublin… Yawn.. That big green space West of the m50 will soon be called outer space the way this country is going….

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    Mute Darren O Siadhail
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:35 AM

    Hotels in fields are you suggesting? I’m confused!

    15
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    Mute Martin Sinnott
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    Aug 1st 2013, 7:46 AM

    The European presidency filled many hotel rooms, it was a one off ! This should be a warning, next year the figures won’t look so good.

    32
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    Mute Luke
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:08 AM

    You’re hoping aren’t you?

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    Mute Vinnie Bonar
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:20 AM

    Not that many, sorry to disappoint.

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    Mute Michael Brady
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    Aug 1st 2013, 8:34 AM

    The EU presidency was in 2013 – this survey was taken in 2012.

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    Mute Nelly
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    Aug 1st 2013, 6:58 AM

    That’s great news hopefully the rest of the industry picks up to

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    Mute Alan Rooney
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    Aug 1st 2013, 1:16 PM

    Articles like this have the potential to be quite damaging to the hotel industry! It’s not so black and white people!

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    Mute Simon McGrath
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    Aug 1st 2013, 9:09 AM

    No surprise there still being ripped off

    7
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    Mute Iam D Best
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    Aug 1st 2013, 6:01 PM

    good news though, keep it coming, its greedy stories like this that tell us all NOT to book a hotel room cos we know their workers are underpaid.

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    Mute Alan Rooney
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    Aug 1st 2013, 11:44 PM

    My above point is now proven!

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