Tonight's RTE Prime Time special investigated the open crack cocaine trade in Ballymun
With an addiction rate ten times the national average, Ballymun has been besieged by addiction problems for forty years.
The programme talked to users in a local park, who demonstrated how to smoke crack and talked about the intense addiction, which often spills over into other addictions, financial issues, mental health issues, and social problems.
They talked about why they take drugs, scratching the surface of the deep-rooted social, financial, and housing issues that communities across the capital have combatted for decades.
Shocking footage showed open drug deals in a senior citizens housing complex, just metres away from families and vulnerable people, as well as kids leaving school.
A number of health and community experts, as well as members of the community, spoke on the programme, who shared the impact of addiction and the lives that had been lost over the years.
The situation was best summed up by Andrew Montague, the chair of the Ballymun Drugs Task Force, who said: "The level of open drug dealing we have here just would not be tolerated in other communities, in more advantaged communities in this country.
"There would be an outcry and something would be done about"
Gardai did not make anyone available for interview on the programme.
Viewers hearts were broken watching, and the overriding theme of the reactions was simple: the cycle of poverty, disadvantage, and drugs being a scourge on communities in Dublin needs to be broken.
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