Gardaí found just under €335,000 worth of Xanax tablets in a secret, lead-lined compartment under the floor of a Renault van at Dublin Port last summer, a court has heard.
The tablets, also known as Alprazolam, were discovered when gardaí pulled up the floor carpet of the van which arrived from Manchester on July 4th last year.
Dublin man Conor Kealy (42) was sentenced to four and a half years in prison after he pleaded guilty to importing controlled drugs on the date in question.
Kealy of Gleann na hEorna, Springfield, Tallaght, Dublin 24, told gardaí he didn’t know what was in the compartment.
Passing sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Wednesday, Judge Martin Nolan accepted that Kealy had been transporting the drugs to alleviate his own drug debt.
Judge Nolan said although 167,000 tablets was a large quantity of drugs, Kealy’s level of culpability was at the lower end of the scale.
He backdated the sentence to the date of the offence last July when Kealy went into custody.
A prosecuting garda told Sinéad McMullan BL for the State that Kealy was driving a small Renault Kangu van when he was stopped at Dublin Port at 6am in the morning.
Kealy told gardaí he had travelled to the United Kingdom the previous week and was working in cladding.
During a search of the van, gardaí pulled up the carpet and found a hidden compartment, lead-lined to avoid detection, containing tablets valued at €334,950.
Kealy cooperated with gardaí but said he had not known what was in the compartment.
He has 21 previous convictions, all from the District Court, including two for drugs offences.
The garda agreed with Dominic McGinn SC, defending, that Kealy was a vulnerable person with no trappings of wealth who had struggled with addiction since his teens.
Mr McGinn said his client had a sad childhood, with his father dying when he was very young and his mother dying when he was 21.
He had been his mother’s sole carer for the last year of her life, the court heard.
Kealy started smoking cannabis at the age of 11 and was on heroin by 16. He moved to Canada for a year after his mother died but continued to struggle with addiction, the court heard.
Counsel said Kealy was in fear for himself and his family over his drug debt, which was the major catalyst for this offence.
The court heard Kealy is doing well in prison and has adapted well to life in custody.
