‘Disconnect’ between those who take cocaine and impact of the drug – Kelly

The new leader of Irish police has spoken of a “disconnect” between people who take cocaine and care about the environment, and the wider impact of the class A drug in Ireland and across the world.

Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly also spoke about multinational gangs using boats off the west coast of Ireland to bring cocaine into the country.

He said he is surprised by the “disconnect between the public and those that care about the environment, then using drugs like cocaine which cause damage in South America where it is produced”.

“Not only in our communities here in Ireland, in some of our most disadvantaged communities, but also outside of Ireland, if you look at some of the production areas like Colombia, vast tracts of the Amazon destroyed by cocaine production,” he said during a press conference in Dublin on Tuesday.

“For me, we have people – and let’s be realistic about this – we have people who are concerned about filling their green bin, concerned about driving a green eco car, and using cocaine and destroying vast tracts of the Amazon with pollution.

“People who are interested in promoting various causes here, which are all good causes, and then using cocaine, and then supporting people in areas like Colombia who are virtually enslaved and trafficked into the drugs trade.

“So for me, I can never understand that. People really need to understand the implications of what they are doing around drugs.”

Mr Kelly praised Garda drugs units around the country for doing “fantastic work”.

“All those seizures, all those arrests, all those prosecutions, there is an immense amount of work in the background that goes into all of those,” he said.

“We will be continuing to do that, again, that’s an area that we need to grow capabilities around.”

He described groups involved in the supply of drugs, including “big smuggling ones”.

“You’ll have seen a lot of them off the west coast, people using ribs (rigid inflatable boats) going out, bringing back large consignments of particularly cocaine,” he said.

“All the people involved in those operations in the last few months, they’re all multinational, we’ve got people from various different countries.

“The days are gone where you have got an Irish gang or even an English gang as we have had in the past. These are people from all over the world, so for us that international co-operation is really important.”