A TD has claimed in a Dáil committee that children as young as seven are coming into school “high” on drugs.
Speaking at the Oireachtas Justice Committee on Tuesday, Fine Gael TD Paula Butterly said that teachers in Drogheda had reported incidents involving child “drug mules.”
“We have instances where there are children as young as seven coming in high into school,” said Ms Butterly. “The teachers are pulling their hair out because they don’t know how to deal appropriately with these children because of their home situation due to addiction or due to poverty – they feel hopeless because there’s not the supports there.”
She said that people in the area in Co Drogheda now have a sense of dread similar to what there was a number of years ago related to criminal gangs.
“It was effectively dealt with to a certain point. We all genuinely thought that the snake’s head had been lopped off but unfortunately as you know when you cut the head off the snake, another one grows back.”
A report published in Dublin People in August claimed that drug use among children in the Dublin 15 area had reached a shocking new level.
The Drug and Alcohol Trends Monitoring System (DATMS), compiled by the Blanchardstown Local Drug and Alcohol Task Force (BLDATF), for the first time in its nine-year history, documented drug activity in a number of local primary schools.
While the report did not name specific schools, it confirmed that those involved spanned both DEIS and non-DEIS schools, and were in both affluent and disadvantaged parts of the Dublin 15 area.
It claimed that children as young as 11 were using substances including cannabis herb, cannabis oil and nitrous oxide, sometimes during the school day.
Local Aontú councillor Ellen Troy said the report’s findings were “shocking.”
“While we have all heard the anecdotal stories of drug dealing and use amongst primary school children, to see it laid out in cold, hard and factual evidence is chilling,” she said.
“These are very young children. It is really worrying for parents, teachers and the community alike.”
Some Irish politicians have pointed out that in the UK, including Northern Ireland, the age of criminal responsibility is ten. This compares to 12 in the Republic, where the age was raised from 7 years of age in 2006.
There have been questions over how it can be ensured that An Garda Síochána can engage with children who are below the age of criminal responsibility but who are being used as drug mules in some cases, who know they will not face arrest or charges because they are underage.
Responding, Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan told the committee: “If there are children being forced into criminal activity by adults – that is child abuse, we should call it child abuse.”
Senator and Senior Counsel Michael McDowell raised the issue of the Irish justice system being “so appallingly slow” when it comes to the length of time to prosecute.
Mr McDowell said that the Irish legal system was facing a crisis where jury trucks are becoming longer, traumatising victims.