Man was stockpiling painkillers for sale

Gardaí carried out a search at a house in Cork and discovered that a man was stockpiling painkilling tablets for sale or supply to others.

Insp Bill Duane said gardaí obtained a warrant to search the home of Christy O’Gorman at 102 Hollyville, Hollyhill, Cork, on foot of confidential information received.

He said they met O’Gorman at the house and showed him the warrant.

“Gardaí commenced a detailed search of the house and Christy O’Gorman brought them to a bedroom where there was a large quantity of prescription tablets,” Insp Duane told Cork District Court yesterday.

The defendant pleaded guilty to charges of possessing the tablets and possessing them for the purpose of selling or otherwise supplying to others.

Diarmuid Kelleher, defending, said his client accepted that he had not obtained the tablets by prescriptions that were properly made out for his benefit.

Instead he had gone to other people and obtained as many painkillers as he could get.

At the time of the raid by gardaí there were 235 tablets in his possession.

Mr Kelleher said the defendant was coming off heroin at the time and was on a methadone programme.

However, he was experiencing a lot of pain and started to abuse the prescription tablets.

Since then the solicitor said O’Gorman’s situation had stabilised in terms of drug use and was now taking tablets legitimately prescribed for him by his doctor.

Judge Olann Kelleher said of the stash of painkillers found at the defendant’s home on May 10, 2012: “I don’t accept they were all for his own use, not with the quantity involved.

“I don’t accept his evidence in that regard. Some of them may have been but not all of them.”

The judge imposed a four-month jail sentence which he suspended.