BOY (14) GETS YEAR DETENTION FOR DRUG DEALING

THE youngest person to be arrested in the gardai's anti-drug dealer
"Operation Cleanstreets" has been sentenced to 12 months detention for
supplying cannabis.

The 14-year-old boy was given the sentence in Dublin's Juvenile Court which
heard he sold a pounds 10 cannabis "deal" to a plain clothes garda at
Foxhill Park, Coolock, on October 7 last. He denied the charge.

The court heard gardai found 17 more similar deals contained in a crisp bag
nearby after he was arrested.

The boy cannot be named because he is a juvenile and he pleaded not guilty,
claiming the gardai had mistaken him for someone else.

ARRESTED

He was among 200 people arrested throughout Dublin in the last year as part
of "Operation Cleanstreets".

In most cases it involved plain clothes gardai approaching the street
dealers, or just hanging around an area frequented by addicts, and asking
for a single deal of heroin or cannabis. Usually rookies not known to
dealers and who blend in to the street drug scene, they came equipped with
marked pounds 10 or pounds 20 notes which they handed over to the dealers
for the drugs.

When they left the scene, other officers monitoring it immediately picked up
the dealers and together with their visual evidence and the marked notes,
they generally have watertight cases.

There has been a 90pc conviction rate, with the majority pleading guilty,
according to garda sources. Most have been given suspended sentences or
fined because the amount of drugs involved has generally been very small.

ADDICTS

Many are addicts who deal so that the bigger dealers will keep them supplied
with heroin.

Others are not addicts, but do it simply to make money. It is these
low-profile dealers, some apparently respectable people living outside the
drug-ravaged communities, who most fear "Operation Cleanstreets".

"Once they get a conviction, even if it is just a small fine, it makes their
life harder because they know the next time they get caught they probably
will go to jail," said a garda involved in the operation.

As for the 14-year-old, he was sentenced to 12 months detention because he
had been in trouble a number of times before, although he had been dealt
with under the juvenile liaison scheme. The fact that he had 17 other
cannabis deals nearby in the park where he was arrested also meant that his
offence was not considered to be in the same category as others who usually
had only a single deal with them.