'Criminal gangs recruit kids — and try to use their parents' homes to distribute drugs'

Dwyane Horace, senior project worker, the Diamond Project, told the Oireachtas committee on drugs use that some young people who think they have 'great status on the street' are themselves drug users being exploited by a criminal gang. Picture: Oireachtas.ie

Criminal gangs are looking to take over houses to “bag up” drugs if owners go out shopping for a couple of hours, a Dublin youth project has said.

The Diamond Project told an Oireachtas committee that children as young as 12 are being groomed into drug networks, and fear that children as young as nine could be targeted by these gangs.