A GROUP of drug addicts gathered with friends, relatives and supporters in a north Dublin flat last night to fight threatened evictions.
According to Mr Malachy Steenson, of North Inner City Against Drugs, a large group of vigilantes from a group called Ballybough Against Drugs visited four flats in Courtney Place, Ballybough, on Monday night and threatened the families with eviction for drug dealing.
"These are people on methadone. They are not dealing," he said. It seems that people trying to come to terms with their addiction are being targeted."
One of those threatened was Brendan, known as "Fats", Reilly, who has been an addict for 171/2 years. He and his partner, Martina, also an addict, have four children between 10 years and six months. He has been on methadone for 18 months and she has been on it for three years.
"They came here and said. This is the home of Brendan Reilly, otherwise Fats Reilly, notorious drug dealer'," he said.
"I said `I was not dealing I was a victim.' One of them said to my 10 year old daughter. `Your father's feeding you heroin.' They said if I was not out in 24 hours I'd be put out. One of them shouted. `We'll burn them out'."
According to Mr Steenson, the vigilantes have now retreated from this position and said the addicts could come to a meeting and say they would stop. But this meant admitting they were dealing which they were not, he said.
Mr Darren Heffernan, who lives in the same block, was also threatened. He was addicted to smoking heroin and is now on methadone but his girlfriend does not touch drugs.
"We got money from a claim that I was waiting on for six years," she said. "We were not used to money and we splashed out. They put one and one together and got 20 and said we must have been dealing in drugs. We weren't."
Mrs Martha Reilly, Brendan's mother, was a founder of Concerned Parents Against Drugs in the 1980s. "The meetings have changed," she said. "Mick Rafferty and them, their programme was to help the addicts."
Mr Steen son said his group and the North Strand Residents Association, were asking people not to attend a march on Friday organised by the Coalition of Communities against Drugs as it was targeting addicts, not dealers.