Scale of drug problem contributes to existence of paramilitary groups, MPs hear

The scale of the drugs problem in many communities in Northern Ireland contributes to the continued existence of paramilitary groups, MPs have been told.

Professor Marie Breen-Smyth, the Independent Reviewer of the Justice and Security Act, said some paramilitaries face pressure from communities to deal with drug dealers because of the lack of action taken by police.

Ms Breen-Smyth was giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which is investigating the effects of paramilitary activity and organised crime in the region.

She told MPs there are elements within the paramilitary organisations who have devoted themselves to ending criminality.

"One of the great complaints that I get from these elements when I am engaged is if only the PSNI were more effective at dealing with the drug problem in local communities then they wouldn't come under pressure from the communities to deal with drug dealing," she said.

"There is a dance which goes on between a very substantial drug problem in some of the rural areas I visit, complaints from ordinary members of the community saying they've rung the PSNI, they've told them there is a drug dealer sitting at the corner selling drugs out of their car, and nothing happens.

"I get this almost everywhere I go in Northern Ireland.

"There is a symbiotic relationship between the drug problem on the one hand and the continued existence of paramilitaries on the other, because what the paramilitaries who are interested in transition are telling me is that, when people ring the PSNI and they don't get the result they want, they then come to the paramilitaries and say 'You guys need to do something about this'.

"I am very clear with them that they must not do that, they must not break the law.

"But we have a continuing problem, communities polluted by drugs where I can be driven through an estate and drug dealers' houses pointed out to me. This is by paramilitaries saying 'What can we do'?"

The committee later heard from Daniel Holder, deputy director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), a human rights NGO.

He told MPs that paramilitary-style shootings and beatings are a form of torture.

"I don't think it would be comprehensive enough just to deal with the issue of paramilitarism just as some sort of extended crimewave," he said.

"The harms of paramilitarism are much broader and will need a tailored and very different process.

"The word torture has a very specific legal meaning. In terms of that legal standard, I think all punishment shootings and all punishment beatings meet that threshold and should be rightly considered as acts of torture."

Mr Holder also said that housing intimidation is rife in Northern Ireland and that recorded cases are "just the tip of the iceberg".