Seven teens in school uniforms before court on heroin charges in one day

SEVEN teenagers in school uniform appeared before a provincial court on heroin possession charges in a single day, according to the judge presiding over the cases.

Judge Mary Martin, highlighting what she believes are the highly-destructive effects of hard drugs, said there were children as young as 13 on heroin.

On one day this year Judge Martin was on the bench of Portlaoise Juvenile Court when she had to deal with the seven cases.

It is understood at least five were sent to St Patrick’s Institution in Dublin. In interviews following the launch of Carlow/Kilkenny Drug Awareness week, the district court judge spoke of the destruction and devastation caused by substance abuse among young people in the midlands.

She described the drugs crisis as similar to the heroin problems faced by Dublin’s inner city in the 1980s.

“There are children as young as 13 or 14 on heroin now. Last March in Portlaoise Juvenile court I had seven teenagers before me standing in the court in their school uniforms on charges of possessing heroin,” Judge Martin told the Carlow Nationalist newspaper.

She added: “Two or three of them were on seven bags of heroin a day.” Gardai have confirmed the judge’s comments.

However, they were not all arrested at the same time. Those facing charges were involved in car crime to feed their habit. Senior garda sources are sceptical about the claim a person could be on seven bags a day when most addicts probably take no more than two.

Judge Martin said: “I talk out about the realities that are experienced in towns such as Athy, Castlecomer, Portarlington and even more so in larger towns like Portlaoise and Carlow.”

The judge said she finds the juvenile courts upsetting: “Yes I do get very upset and I do have my cry. Often the people who come before me are wounded people with a terrible lack of self esteem.”

Judge Martin said the present levels of drink and drug consumption are scandalous. “If a measure of a good night is how many drinks you can drink, how much you vomited, how many you shifted or shagged, then you need to look at what is happening to you and know it can only end in misery,” she said.