Drug gangs targeting rural communities to be probed at Stormont: MLA accuses Justice Minister over 'stalled' schemes to tackle problem
The Justice Minister is to be quizzed over ‘stalled’ schemes meant to take rural communities out of the sights of vicious drug gangs.
Ulster Unionist deputy leader Diana Armstrong has accused Naomi Long of taking her eye off the ball when it comes to the issue, which as the News Letter revealed yesterday has seen vulnerable older men forced into becoming cross-border drug mules while rural sports clubs are used to recruit young people into the shadowy world of user and dealers
Ms Armstrong argues little seems to have been done since a government report probed the issue almost a year ago, even though at the time the minister spoke of the need for an urgent response.
The report found cross-border drug gang surveillance was lacking and stated older men in Co Fermanagh were specifically inveigled into taking illegal narcotics between Dublin and their homes specifically because law enforcement wouldn’t suspect them of carrying, leading Ms Armstrong to conclude country people are specifically at risk by nature of being “spread out, quiet and watched less”.
The UUP politician has now lodged a series of queries demanding to know what new measures the authorities are putting in place to tackle the gangs, who older men threatened into coercion can turn to for support, and who, if anyone, is monitoring cross-border activity.
Although the News Letter put her points to the Department of Justice, its officials didn’t issue any comment by the time of publication.
Last year’s government report emphasised that new legislation in the Assembly’s Justice Bill will contain ways of addressing drug-related intimidation.
Still in progress, that bill has been making its way through Stormont for the past couple of years. It has to complete six stages in the Assembly before it’s sent to the King for royal assent to become law, and only finished the fourth of those stages at the end of June.
With just nine months until the next election, the current Stormont term is increasingly short on time to get the bill through before politicians break. The News Letter asked department officials if they are confident they’ll make the deadline, but they once more did not have a response by the time of publication.