Donation to addiction centre will keep drug dealer out of jail

A recovered drug addict and dealer must pay €2,500 to an addiction treatment centre in within the next twelve months if he is to avoid a 18-month prison sentence.

Samuel Hennessy (23), from Riverwalk, Gortboy, Newcastlewest, Co. Limerick, pleaded guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court to having a variety of drugs for sale or supply at Wellpark Grove, Wellpark, on June 29, 2020.

Garda Ross Garvey told the sentence hearing Hennessy was present when he and other members of the Divisional Drugs Unit raided his Wellpark address on the date in question.

They found a quantity of methamphetamine along with smaller amounts of lesser-known drugs such as Bromodime, Oxycodone and Tetrahydrocannabinol, as well as ketamine, cannabis herb, MDMA and cannabis resin.

Garda Garvey said he and his colleagues believed Hennessy when he told them he was getting paid in drugs to hold the €6,358 worth of drugs at his address for another man.

Garda Garvey said Hennessy had not appeared on the drugs radar in Galway before or since this incident and he accepted he had been an addict at the time of his arrest and was not dealing for profit.

Defence barrister Brendan Browne, said his client fully co-operated with Gardaí, entered a guilty plea as early as possible and was a first-time offender.

At the time, he said, Hennessy was holding the drugs for someone else to fuel his own drug addiction, but he had since successfully rehabilitated and was now drug free with clear toxicology test results to prove it.

“He had given some of the drugs to friends and was caught in the context of selling and supplying by doing that.  He was not doing it for profit but merely to fund his own drug addiction,” Mr Browne said.

A probation report handed into court confirmed Hennessy was drug-free, in full-time employment and deemed to be at low risk of reoffending.

Judge Brian O’Callaghan sentenced Hennessy to three years in prison for the drug dealing offence, reducing it by 50%, he said, for the plea and successful rehabilitation.

The judge then suspended the remaining 18-month sentence for two years on condition Hennessy pay €2,500 to Cuan Mhuire in Coolarne within the next twelve months.

(Photo: The Cuan Mhuire treatment centre in Coolarne)