MORE than 1,000 people attended an anti drugs meeting at a bingo hall on Dublin's north side last night, writes Richard Balls.
Speakers from community groups all over the city demanded the removal of drugpushers and urged those in the Grand Cinema in Cabra to volunteer for patrols of the areas worst affected.
The crowd listened intently as speakers painted a picture of communities plagued with heroin and increasingly impatient with the suppliers, whose homes have been marched on in recent months by angry crowds.
Mr Jimmy McKeever, of Inner City Residents Against Drugs, said dealers had fallen to a "new low" by selling sweets injected with heroin outside schools to make youngsters addicted. Drugs were claiming the lives of dozens of young people, some only in their teens, while babies were being born with AIDS.
Loud applause filled the hall following reports that drug pushers had been driven out of an area of Kilbarrack by local activists.
Mr Kevin Arnold, chairman of Families Against Drug Dealers in Kilbarrack, told how his heroin addicted son was serving a six year sentence in Parkhurst Prison in England and was suffering from hepatitis C.
The group he formed had got rid of the "scumbags" dealing drugs in the area, but they had left up to 40 addicts behind who were receiving help from a new clinic.
Another activist from the Hardwicke Street flats complex said 16 pushers operating in a playground had held residents virtual prisoners, until local people united and ordered them to leave their homes.
Mr Joe Costello TD, Labour, Mr Tony Gregory TD, Independent, Sinn Fein councillor Mr Christy Burke and Mr John Kearney, a Fine Gael councillor, attended.