A COAL MERCHANT WHO SWITCHED TO HEROIN

The IEP30,000 was as grubby as money gets. It was tightly wrapped in
bundles, probably after being buried somewhere on Michael Heeney's acre of
land. There were IEP10s and IEP20s, the currency of the heroin street deal,
and traces of the drug were found on the notes.

Navan gardai seized the money in a search of Heeney's land around his
three-bedroom house outside Duleek, Co Meath, last September.

Known as Country Mick in the Dublin communities where he sold heroin, the
39-year-old coal merchant had been arrested by undercover gardai five
months earlier on his nightly drug run to Dublin.

He was found with nine batches of heroin, or more than 150 street deals,
ready to sell to addicts in the north inner city.

Heeney appeared an unlikely drug dealer. As a heroin wholesaler to at least
five north Dublin dealers he had earlier made his living as a delivery man
of a different kind.

From Drogheda, Co Louth, Heeney was well-known around Duleek and Drogheda
as a coal merchant. The coal round, which he operated on his own, took in
the village and surrounding townland.

He had no serious convictions, a road traffic offence from the 1970s and
several small-time convictions for having cannabis for personal use. He had
moved to the house at Keenogue less than two years previously and
neighbours had already noticed some strange goings-on before his first
arrest.

Heeney's coal lorry was still parked in the yard when gardai from the
Dublin North Central Drugs Division found 10 oz, or more than a
quarter-kilo of uncut heroin hidden up a tree in a camouflaged bag in
October last year.

Heeney had quickly become a key member of a gang involved in heroin
trafficking. He is believed to have been working for a London-based dealer,
originally from the midlands.

Two members of the gang were sentenced in Dublin in the last year. Both
were heroin wholesalers, like Heeney, taking delivery of large consignments
bought in London from Turkish criminals. An Irish associate of the gang
received a four-year sentence in London last week for having a half-kilo of
heroin.

Heeney's involvement seemed to deepen after the arrest of another gang
member in February 1997. The man was arrested with IEP500,000 worth of
heroin and a sawn-off shotgun.

According to gardai it was in February that Heeney gave up the coal
business for good and began his trips to Dublin. When he was arrested in
October 1997 he had progressed to delivering quarterounces of uncut heroin
to large dealers.

He and his wife both had heroin habits, smoking the drug rather than
injecting it, and they lived in what one source described as squalor.

Although the IEP30,000 was among several large cash seizures Heeney was not
spending the money on the lavish lifestyle associated with drug barons.

Last night the independent TD, Mr Tony Gregory, called on judges to start
implementing life sentences for drug dealers.

"In 1984 the Misuse of Drugs Act brought in life sentences for drug
dealers. Judges are handing out fairly severe sentences now, but heroin
dealers a few years ago were getting average sentences of two or three
years," he said.

"As legislators we were criticised for not responding to the issue. But we
did respond 15 years ago, at the height of the drugs problem in the 1980s."

Mr Gregory claimed lighter sentences had contributed to the problem, by
failing to deter criminals attracted by the large sums of money to be made
out of heroin dealing.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)