Teenagers dealing drugs in Westport – Hyland

Policing meeting hears drugs issue ‘going out of control’ in Ballinrobe

Edwin McGreal

Teenagers as young as 16 years of age are dealing drugs in Westport and the issue is ‘going out of control’ in Ballinrobe according to two county councillors.

Cllrs Christy Hyland (Ind) and Damien Ryan (FF) made the comments at last Friday’s quarterly meeting of the Mayo Joint-Policing Committee in Ballinrobe.

Cllr Hyland said 16 and 17 year- old youths were ‘targeting kids in secondary schools in Westport’.

“I’m getting very worried. The way things are going is sad and we need more garda resources to deal with this problem,” said Cllr Hyland.

Cllr Damien Ryan said there is ‘a serious drugs problem in Ballinrobe’.

“It’s well identified that there are drop-off and pick-up points for drugs on the outskirts of the town. It is going out of control,” Cllr Ryan said.

He said that the Mayo Divisional Drugs Unit should be based in Ballinrobe for a trial period so they could see the extent of the problem.

Chief Superintendent Pat Diskin said the gardaí had ‘considerable success with the drugs issue in the wider Ballinrobe area’ but ‘that took huge resources to get that detection’.

Cllr Ryan said many people are not reporting drugs issues to gardaí and cited one local witness who he said was ‘intimidated’ after making a statement. However Supt Diskin said people could provide information in a confidential manner.

“I would emphasise to anyone with information, particularly in schools, to tell us and we’ll do the rest. We don’t need to take statements or even names, all we need is a phonecall,” he said.

Cllr Hyland was critical of the amount of gardaí in the Mayo Divisional Drugs Unit. Chief Supt Diskin informed him that there is one detective sergeant and four gardaí in the unit.

“Four gardaí and a detective sergeant for a county of this size is not good enough in my opinion. Drugs has to be 24/7 policing and you have to do in your face policing to deal with them (drug dealers),” said Cllr Hyland, a retired garda himself.

Chief Supt Diskin said the gardaí also have a special unit in Westport who deal with crime, including drugs and added ‘all gardaí are involved in drugs enforcement’.

Cllr Hyland was also critical of the vehicles the Mayo Divisional Drugs Unit have. He said he met some officers from the unit in Westport recently and saw the car they were driving had 280,000kms on the clock.

“It doesn’t send out a good message. It was clapped out I thought,” said Cllr Hyland. Supt Diskin said they have applied for new transport for the drugs unit.

Cllr Damien Ryan requested that the issue of drugs be a full item of discussion for the next JPC meeting in December.