Cutbacks and austerity are as pernicious as hard drugs

THE protests about drug-dealers in Roscrea gave me a profound sense of déjà vu.

In a small town hit by the recession, Gardaí have complained that their ‘limited resource base’ has restricted their capacity to respond to the problem. Although the Garda Regional Response Unit has been deployed, the Roscrea problem is hauntingly reminiscent of another drugs-based criminal culture — Limerick City’s in the last major Irish recession, in the 1980s. When I was researching gangland crime, residents of Limerick’s marginalised areas described how, during the 1980s, drug dealers got a hold in their neighbourhoods. These settled estates became ravaged by drugs crime and anti-social behaviour. A poorly resourced police force struggled to respond and the power vacuum fostered a more serious criminal culture.

This criminal culture produced a deadly feud, a highly organised crime network and a culture of intimidation, culminating in a series of murders that tore the city apart. It took 100 extra Gardaí, an armed response unit, a new Criminal Justice Act, as well as massive investment into community policing and youth intervention schemes to undo the damage created by state neglect.