I have been working in the area of drug addiction and drug-related intimidation for 30 years within communities across Dublin. The escalation of violence we see now is oceans apart from the ways criminals sorted their differences in the past. There has been a frightening shift in recent times, in which petrol bombs, arson attacks and threats have become the norm; and innocent people and extended family members are being treated as leverage in the violent and intimidating enforcement of sometimes small drug debts.

The ease with which innocent families become embroiled in drug debts is terrifying. A young person gets drugs on credit, or takes some to sell and – for whatever reason – can’t repay the debt. Or they may be asked to sell drugs to pay for their habit. In some cases, a young person has taken some drugs to sell to feed their own habit, and the drugs are subsequently stolen – usually by another young person within the same drugs gang. And then a more senior criminal comes knocking at the door looking for their drugs and their money, and the young person has neither. The threats and intimidation start. Suddenly the whole family is involved.

Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles are all now apparently fair game when it comes to the enforcement of drug debts. These families face an impossible demand: pay off the debt and support the criminal gang or live in terror of the consequences.

Physical beatings – people with black eyes and other injuries – have always been part of the picture. Now petrol bombs and arson attacks are part of it too, usually intended as intimidation.

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