Intimidation over drug debts on rise
However, Fr McVerry, who runs the homeless organisation the Peter McVerry Trust in Dublin, said the families of indebted drug users are also being targeted.
“The threat to the person has increased rather than decreased,” he said. “It is only a small number of people that choose to go to England but to be honest they often come back pretty quickly.”
Fr McVerry said he had provided return tickets to three or four young men in the past year so they could get the ferry to England, but added that it was not a long-term solution.
“I would say to them, ‘if you want to get out, why not try Cork or Galway?’”
He said drug gangs were still focussing attention on the families of drug users with debts, including their parents, but that, in many cases, once the person who owes money has left the scene their families are targeted less often.
“The drug dealers have bigger problems to worry about,” he said.
As for the small number who leave the country, he said many returned within weeks or months due to the lack of a support network. They use the ferry as many would not have a passport, which rules out air travel.
In some cases, parents will offer to pay the drug debt, he said.
“The pressure is applied and sometimes the parents give in and take out a credit union loan to pay them off,” he said.
“The whole question of intimidation — threatening people, assaulting people for owing money, even small amounts of money — that is definitely on the increase.”
Fr McVerry said in many cases it seemed as though there was little the gardaí could do to protect families, adding that the main concern from the point of view of drug gangs was the possibility of people becoming witnesses against them.
He also said that due to a shortage of drug treatment places there was “only a small window of opportunity” for those people wishing to tackle their drug use.
