Man sentenced to seven-and-a-half years for possession €200k of heroin
A man who came off drugs twice and helped many others combat their addictions has been given a seven-and-half-years sentence for having heroin worth almost €200,000.
Alan McNally managed an aftercare programme for addicts for some years after rehabilitating himself in 2001 but relapsed into drug addiction again in 2006 because of a lack of financial and other supports for his voluntary work and carried the heroin because of a “debt” he ran up with a drugs criminal he feared.
Shots had been fired at his home and a caravan he owned had been set on fire, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told by Detective Sergeant Gregory Sheehan.
Four of the many people he helped in the addiction aftercare programme were in court to support him.
McNally (aged 32) of Cappagh Avenue, Finglas pleaded guilty to possession of heroin worth €196,000 for sale or supply at Springvale Road, Raheny on March 3, 2006.
Judge Tony Hunt said that McNally's “highly unusual personal circumstances” and the fact that he previously demonstrated he was capable of living a law abiding life allowed him to deviate from the presumptive minimum sentence of 10 years.
He said that McNally was a person who had been through two lots of drug addiction and had managed to get himself back on the straight and narrow but when he took on too much on in his voluntary work without significant support he unfortunately relapsed into drug use.
Judge Hunt said he was impressed by the number of a testimonials handed in on McNally's behalf and said that urine analysis reports also indicated it was obvious he was motivated to turn his life around yet again.
He suspended the last two and half years of the sentence on strict conditions after noting that McNally was a “very particular individual” who had assisted others in combatting their own addictions.
Detective Sergeant Gregory Sheehan told prosecuting counsel, Mr Shane Costelloe BL, that as a result of confidential information a surveillance operation was set up outside a house on Edenmore Drive.
McNally was stopped by gardai after he drove off from the house in a Volkswagon Pssat and heroin cache was found in the foot-well behind the passenger seat.
Detective Sergeant Sheehan said that McNally was not of “material assistance” to the gardai during his interview and relied on his right to silence. He had five previous convictions including a three year suspended sentence for an assault charge.
Detective Sergeant Sheehan accepted a suggestion from defence counsel Mr Gerry O'Brien SC (with Mr Raymond Farrell BL) that McNally had run up a “drug debt” with a criminal he was in fear of. Shots had been fired at McNally's home and that a caravan he owned had been set on fire.
Detective Sergeant Sheehan also accepted that McNally was further down the ladder than other drug dealers and had no visible assets.
A reformed drug addict told Judge Hunt that he and three other men were in court to support McNally because he had helped them rehabilitate and come off drugs.
He said he attended the after care house McNally was running when he was homeless and a chronic heroin user. He stayed there for a number of weeks before McNally accompanied him to a residential treatment centre in Limerick.
McNally continued to support him throughout his treatment there and allowed him to return to the after care house on its completion.
Mr O'Brien said McNally had been abusing drugs since the age of 13. He was clean from 2001 to 2006 when he studied drug intervention and counselling at UCD before he took on the position running the aftercare houses on a voluntary unpaid basis.
McNally's supervisor died and was never replaced and came under a lot of pressure running the programme's three houses which led to his relapse into addiction.
