DPP fails in bid to appeal Limerick drug dealer’s sentence

THE DIRECTOR of Public Prosecution has failed in an appeal against the leniency of a five year prison sentence given to a Limerick man for a drug conviction.

On May 24, 2011, Jason Ryan (35) with an address in Limerick City was jailed for five years in respect of three offences contrary to the Misuse of Drugs Act between December 2009 and March 2010.

On December 7, 2009, Ryan was found to be in possession of Diamorphine with an estimated street value of €61,239.15. He was arrested that day and made full admissions to the gardaí about his own offending. He was charged and brought to the District Court the following day and released on bail.

On February 19, 2010,he was stopped and searched at O’Connell Street, Limerick and handed the gardaí five deals of Diamorphine. He produced a further nine deals of Diamorphine in the Garda Station and was then brought to the regional hospital in Limerick, where a further 30gms of Diamorphine was recovered from him.

On March 4, 2010, Gardaí found 30 deals of Diamorphine valued at €750 in his apartment. He was arrested, charged and released on bail.

Ryan appeared before the then presiding Judge Carroll Moran and was effectively jailed for five years.

The DPP, in an application to the court of Appeal, said that Judge Carroll Moran should have imposed a minimum ten year jail term.

The court heard that Ryan was a heroin addict with a particularly heavy habit and the appeal was listed at a time when he had served the entirety of the five year sentence imposed on him.

The three judge appeal court said that the DPP failed to argue against the sentencing judge deviating from the ten-year mandatory minimum sentence.

“It is well known that a person addicted to heroin in the way this respondent was and who was not on a methadone programme is likely to continue offending,” Justice Sheehan said.

The court ruled that the four year sentence imposed for the first offence was lenient but the addition of the one year consecutive sentences for the second and third offences was not unduly lenient and refused the DPP’s application.