Anything Good In The Irish News?

at

irish_news.750

Shocking details of the heroin-related death of a north Belfast grandmother have emerged. Fra Stone from the Community Drugs Programme of Falls Community Council said he believed Ms Fitzpatrick’s death was the first heroin-related fatality in the city in about a decade.

Granny (49) found dead with heroin syringe by her side (Marie Louise McConville, Irish News) [behind paywall]

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28 thoughts on “Anything Good In The Irish News?

  1. Mr. T.

    First in a decade? What’s Belfast doing right that Dublin isn’t.

    I was in Belfast earlier in the year for a couple of days. No signs of homelessness or junkies wandering around.

      1. andyourpiontiswhatexactly

        Aye. No begging allowed. It kind of freaked me out when I first went up there. The city seems strangely sterile.
        Last time I was up there, there was an LGTB parade or something. Anyway, all the kids were marching and doing their thing, while outside the city hall stood a guy on a soapbox ROARING anti-gay religious tracts at them. Nobody was batting an eyelid.
        Strange city.

        1. rotide

          Everyone having their say and not being castigated for it?

          You seem to imply there’s a problem with this?

          1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

            I had a problem with it, yes. They’re so used to religious intolerance up there that this aul loony roaring invective at the young gay kids didn’t cause anyone to blink an eye.

    1. scottser

      they’ve a very sensible, low tolerance policy on street drinking, combined with a good number of ‘wet’ shelters to manage problem drinkers.

  2. Clampers Outside!

    My brother works with a company that provides the public coin operated loos to Cork, Galway, Kilkenny and a few other spots mostly up and down the west coast,. Unfortunately they do not do them in Dublin, wish they did Dublin too so I could get a more rounded picture. Hell, he said, they don’t even want the Dublin contract… here’s why….

    He said last night that the drugs are getting out of hand in Cork…. they find no needles in Kilkenny these days since a particular character in a wheel chair disappeared from the area; about a dozen needles in the last 12 months in Galway; and they’ve filled a 60 litre hazard bin of needles in the last 18 months in Cork which now contains a couple of thousand…
    A 60 litre bin FFS! ….about the size of a standard tall kitchen bin.

    Sorry… that was somewhat of a slight tangent…

    1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

      Back in the day (early 90s) I remember everyone thought there was no heroin problem in Cork because the guys who dealt Es wouldn’t allow heroin over the county boundaries. In hindsight though, that was probably a very middle-class view of things.

      1. The Old Boy

        I now have a picture in my head of pill heads manning illegal checkpoints on the Cork-Tipperary border.

        1. Italia'90

          I remember back then the Michelstown Cheesadists would pollute the air on the road into town from the Dublin side, which had the heroin mules doing a rapid U-turn up by the Firgrove Hotel.

      2. rosie

        i always assumed it had more to do with cork not having a methadone programme until 2006 or so. if you wanted methadone then off to dublin you went (unlike waterford/ limerick/ galway which all had established programmes.

        as an aside (and this is purely observational) i haven’t really seen that many fatal heroin ODs in inner city dublin.

  3. bisted

    …the real news in the Irish News is that Sir Bob Geldof is urging the Scottish to vote No in the upcoming referendum….still 7/2 with Betfair for a Yes vote.

    1. The Old Boy

      I’m very much of the “never mind the polls, ask a bookie” school of thought when it comes the these things myself. Despite the last minute hype the Yes campaign seem to have managed to generate, I think the union is fairly safe for the time being.

      What Sir Bob has to do with it is another question.

  4. Carlos

    @andyourpiontiswhatexactly – strangest city of all is one which accepts rampant heroin addiction with a blithe shrug of the shoulders they way Dublin does. Like most people who move to the city, when I first arrived was stunned at the level of addiction and casual indifference towards it.

    And begging technically is illegal North & South. I suggest the higher incidence in Dublin is directly linked to heroin and drug addiction and a desperate daily search for money. That problem doesn’t exist here or in most other Irish cities.

    This is worth a watch: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-isnt-ireland-doing-anything-about-its-heroin-problem

    1. andyourpointiswhatexactly

      I lived in a dodgy part of Madrid years ago and used get on the Metro with addicts who used to smoke heroin in the carriage. Next stop, everyone used to just get out of the carriage and move up one, to leave them at it. It’s a worldwide scourge.
      I think there’s also an issue with methadone clinics being in the city centre in Dublin (I might be wrong, but there used to be one in Temple Bar, maybe not anymore?) so that doesn’t help.

    2. Westbrit

      Begging is not illegal in Republic of Ireland. The original law on begging and vagrancy was struck down by The Supreme court nearly a decade ago. The replacement legislation which was to govern new more aggressive forms of begging such as camping out at ATM’s and harassing people for money was struck down by the Supreme court 2 years ago.

  5. JP

    As a Nordie I had occasion to be working near the Central Criminal Court earlier this year and then walked back into town along the quays. On the basis of that stroll about 1 in 4 people in Dublin appear to be junkies or deranged alcoholics.

  6. Carlos

    Yes WestBrit you’re right the law prohibited aggressive begging only. Didn’t know the new one had already been struck down. Thanks.

    And yes there are Meth clinics in central Dublin (Temple Bar, also Thomas Street) but the reason we see so much of it is because it’s a massive problem: 7.2 per 1000 people are opiate addicts in Ireland – http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/countries/data-sheets/ireland

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