Pubdate: Fri, 12 March 1999
Source: Independent, The (UK)
Copyright: Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Author: Alan Murdoch in Dublin and Andrew Buncombe

ADDICTS IMPORT A PLAGUE OF ROBBERY AND VIOLENCE TO DUBLIN'S FAIR CITY

THE MENACING clatter of helicopter blades wakes residents of the newly
developed apartment blocks near the Grand Canal in Dublin two or three
nights a week. Sometimes flying high, but more often than not swooping in
low with its high-powered spotlight, the police helicopter is a persistent
disturbance to the young, white-collar, and increasingly sleep-deprived
residents of the Liberties area of Dublin.

That noise, together with the relentless wail of car alarms, is a reminder
of the drugs and crime problem that is blighting one of Europe's most
successful cities.

In the past decade or so Dublin has undergone a transformation. Thousands of
young, working people have been lured to the inner-city by flats at
affordable prices. But the renaissance is being threatened by drug addicts.
In prosperous commercial areas, every shop has security staff on the doors.

In Patrick Street, the small convenience stores opposite the Protestant
cathedral have their own doormen, while local newsagents weary of
"jumpovers" - where robbers leap over the counter to get at the till -
invest in closed circuit television.

And there are the stories of sheer horror. One shop worker - one of 2,200
people who reported attacks or threats of such attacks in the city in 1996 -
was stabbed by a robber armed with a blood-filled syringe. For weeks while
he waited for the results of blood tests he was terrified he might have
Aids. "I was a nervous wreck," he said. "The guy that did it to me is dead
now. He died of Aids two years ago."

The violence is not restricted to robbery. Alan Byrne, 27, a rehabilitated
addict, was shot three times in the lower back in an assassination attempt
last Tuesday in the Coombe area as he set off for work.

Byrne shared a flat with Josie Dwyer, 41, a HIV-positive heroin addict. They
were together on the night in May 1996 when Dwyer was repeatedly attacked
and eventually beaten to death in an apparent vigilante mob attack.

After two decades of an escalating drugs problem, the tactics of Dublin
anti-drug vigilante groups are uncompromising. In the Sundrive area late
last year they put up posters listing names of drug dealers to be shot.

As if this were not enough, there are savage internecine "turf wars" between
dealers. "Cottoneye Joe" Delaney, 54, an alleged ecstasy dealer, is accused
of the torture and murder of a dealer Mark Dwyer, 23, in December 1996.

Similar levels of violence surrounded the operations of PJ "the Psycho"
Judge, a criminal with suspected INLA links, who tried to take over Dublin's
cannabis market in 1996. Judge, 41, who was shot dead two years ago, was
suspected of killing five rivals.

One of his suspected victims was William "Jock" Corbally, whose body was
never found. He reportedly had his teeth pulled out, was beaten with a
shovel before having his throat cut, then thrown into a lime pit in Co
Kildare.

But dealers are willing to risk such violence for a share of a burgeoning
market: According to the

most recent figures, Dublin now has around 13,000 regular heroin users, up
from 8,000 to 10,000 two years ago. Officers based at the Garda headquarters
in Dublin's Phoenix Park believe that heroin is now responsible for 80 per
cent of the city's crime. Their studies suggest addicts commit 85 per cent
of aggravated burglaries, 82 per cent of muggings and 84 per cent of theft
from cars.

As with Dublin's population, the profile of the heroin users is largely
youthful. A recent survey carried out by a government task force suggested
that 72 per cent of heroin users were male, 83 per cent unemployed and 69
per cent lived with their parents. Two-thirds of those regularly using
heroin in the city are under 25, and almost the same proportion left school
at 16 or younger.

Tony Geoghegan, director of the Merchants Quay Project which treats drugs
users, said 900 mainly young, first-time drug users sought treatment in the
city last year. A high proportion of these had begun injecting in the last
six months.

"You are dealing with high levels of educational disadvantage and poverty,
with few having aspirations," he said. "[They come] from areas where there
is an established black economy and where maybe the parents were involved in
crime or drugs."

The Irish government has tried to deal with the Dublin's heroin problem. In
the early Eighties it used undercover officers whose efforts, accompanied by
community action, were effective in tackling dealers who were then less
careful about distancing themselves from the product.

And after the 1996 killing of journalist Veronica Guerin by drug dealers, a
murder which prompted an international outcry, the Government poured more
funds into anti-drugs measures. A new Criminal Assets Bureau targeting major
dealers was set up.

But as fast as the Garda act, so new dealers move in. The deaths continue,
the estates built with short-sightedness in the Sixties continue to be
littered with syringes and glass from smashed up cars, while the problems
spill over into the newly gentrified areas where the residents are woken at
night by the sound of helicopter blades.

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