'Drug runner' says gangs in Drogheda are 'scumbags' who are 'very dangerous'
A man who has acted as a 'drug runner' for one of the gangs in the Drogheda feud was said the people involved are "scumbags" and "very dangerous".
Speaking to Brian O'Connell on RTÉ Radio 1's Today with Sean O'Rourke, the runner highlighted how dangerous things have become in Drogheda.
O'Connell was reporting from Drogheda where he said "there is a real edge to the area."
He said the feud has been escalating since 2018 and since "there have been attempted murders, petrol bombs, pipe bomb attacks and then numerous acts of violence and intimidation with many incidents happening in the afternoon in very public places."
O'Connell said he spent time with someone who had been a runner for one of the gangs involved in the feud, who would store drugs for them.
He said the runner gave him a "chilling insight" into how the gangs think and their "total lack of regard" for the rest of society.
The man's voice and identity had been disguised, with O'Connell saying he was trying to break away from the gang.
The unidentified man said being a runner involved "meeting them up and being handed a good lot of drugs" where he would hold onto them until someone else "comes and picks them up".
He said he wasn't paid but he got drugs "to feed the habit".
When asked where the feud came from, he said there was a younger gang that came in and the feud became about territory. He added that "madness hit between the two of them".
He said that the majority of the drugs going around was coke and weed.
"There's not many heroin dealers around now, it's just coke and weed dealers now," he said.
He said the people he was dealing with were "scumbags" and "very dangerous people".
Scumbags, to the highest degree. They're all junked up, they're all on steroids. They're all [beeped] up in the head, really manic in the head.
O'Connell said the runner is in daily fear of the gangs and has known them all his life. O'Connell added that he was in fear for his life and his family's lives.
"They don't really care who they hurt or when they hurt them. In my eyes they don't care," the runner told O'Connell.
"They threaten your mother's house to try to get you. Because they know you're going to come out of hiding for your mother."
The runner added that there "was never enough resources" for the gardaí.
Calling for more armed guards on the street, the runner said: "There's 17 and 18-year-old young fellas out there with guns on the street.
"So if there's 18-year-old young fellas with guns, I think any guard...should be armed as well."
O'Connell said that many people were afraid to speak to him while he was in Drogheda.
"Over a dozen people I spoke to in Drogheda last week told me of their fears and their worries, and some of them of their direct experiences with the feud," O'Connell said.
"But they were all too terrified to speak even with their identities protected.
"For example, soon after I arrived in Drogheda I met one parent who had a knock on her door late at night telling her that her son owed €2,000 for drugs.
"This parent let in the two people who called to their door and they hammered out an agreement and they told her she was lucky that she opened the door to them because if she hadn't her son would have ended up ion the boot of a car.
"That's the kind of level of threat that's happening in Drogheda at the moment."
