Dublin man sentenced for €4m heroin haul

A young Dublin man with no previous convictions has been given a seven-year sentence with two suspended for possessing nearly €4m of heroin in his car.

Daniel Davis (aged 22) of Sandyhill Way, Ballymun claimed he "jumped at the chance" to earn money to offset a €1,200 cocaine "bill" by transporting a sportsbag full of drugs from Navan Road Travelodge to a nearby pub car park.

He said a "fella" had told him he'd be a rich man once the job was done.

Judge Katherine Delahunt described Davis as "a young man looking to make easy money" because he had a new Toyota Avensis car and the remainder of a personal injury claim to "discharge" his drug debt at the time.

She said Davis's early guilty plea and co-operation with gardaí were " to his credit", despite the aggravating factor of a financially motivated crime.

Davis pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing nearly 20kg of heroin worth €3,865,400 at the Halfway House Pub on the Navan Road on July 7, 2008.

Detective Garda Declan O'Connell of the Garda National Drugs Unit said he and colleagues followed Davis' car from Travelodge to the nearby pub car park, where they found the drugs in the backseat.

Det Gda O'Connell told Mr Cormac Quinn BL, prosecuting, that gardaí weren't monitoring Davis as part of their drugs trafficking operation.

He said Davis denied he knew what was in the confiscated sportsbag but claimed he'd received a phone call to pick it up at Travelodge and deliver it to "a man called 'Mick'".

The detective garda agreed with Ms Iseult O'Malley SC ,defending, that her client had no previous convictions or any record of "petty offending" and that he was unlikely to come before the courts again.

He further agreed that Davis had since dropped contact with his former peers and had taken steps toward rehabilitation by attending drugs counselling for his cocaine problem.

Judge Delahunt acknowledged Davis' efforts and suspended the final two years of his sentence.