Young men who owe money to drug dealers are still fleeing to England to avoid retribution, Fr Peter McVerry has said.
However, Fr McVerry, who runs the homeless organisation the Peter McVerry Trust in Dublin, said the families of indebted drug users are also being targeted.
“The threat to the person has increased rather than decreased,” he said. “It is only a small number of people that choose to go to England but to be honest they often come back pretty quickly.”
Fr McVerry said he had provided return tickets to three or four young men in the past year so they could get the ferry to England, but added that it was not a long-term solution.
“I would say to them, ‘if you want to get out, why not try Cork or Galway?’”
He said drug gangs were still focussing attention on the families of drug users with debts, including their parents, but that, in many cases, once the person who owes money has left the scene their families are targeted less often.
“The drug dealers have bigger problems to worry about,” he said.
As for the small number who leave the country, he said many returned within weeks or months due to the lack of a support network. They use the ferry as many would not have a passport, which rules out air travel.
Source: Noel Baker, Irish Examiner, 04/03/13
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