A Dublin TD has told the Dail of concerns for the safety and welfare of children living in the Oliver Bond flat complex in Dublin’s south inner city with children witnessing "queues of people" getting drugs.
Sinn Fein TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh told the Dail on Thursday that the situation in the Liberties complex has “gone absolutely buck mad”, the Irish Times reports. Deputy Ó Snodaigh told the Dail: "The queues of people outside certain blocks and flats show this is organised.
"There are characters running up and down taking orders and delivering cash to different flats as they distribute various drugs such as crack cocaine, cocaine, heroin and e-tabs. Children’s lives, in particular, are being corrupted when they start seeing this day in and day out."
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Mr Ó Snodaigh said that the problem of open drug-dealing in the area was on a scale he had never seen before, and that children are witnessing troubling activities in the flats. He said: "When they go to school in their uniforms, they are passing people who are comatose on the stairs because they have injected, they see sexual favours being given on the same stairs.
“On their way to school, they pass a queue of 20 or 30 people and when they come back, the exact same queue is there again," added Deputy Ó Snodaigh. He said that while some support has been provided for residents in the area, the “elephant” in the room has ultimately not been addressed, and that residents don't feel listened to.
Deputy Ó Snodaigh concluded: "The drug dealing is on a scale that I have not seen before, and I have been around in Dublin for many a year.” In a parliamentary response, Minister of State Dara Calleary said Minister for Justice Simon Harris and the government is “very conscious of the distressing impact” this activity has on residents in the Oliver Bond flats.
Minister Calleary said that more than a quarter of all drug seizures in the Kevin Street subdistrict during 2022 came from the Oliver Bond flats. He added that the Oliver Bond complex receives a “high concentration” of garda policing from Kevin Street Garda station.
Minister Calleary said: "An Garda Síochana has advised that there have been a large number of seizures of both drugs and cash recorded in recent week, which had aided in the open sale and supply of controlled drugs and anti-social behaviour in the Oliver Bond flat complex,” he said.
There were 321 garda patrols recorded for the Oliver Bond complex in 2022. Mr Calleary said that additional gardai will be soon added to the community policing unit in Kevin Street Garda station.
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