A man who pleaded guilty to dealing in drugs in a small rural community has been given a choice to either leave the country or serve a nine-month prison sentence.
The punishment was given to David Mathison (39), a married man with a family of two, by Judge Mary Devins at Swinford District Court after he admitted selling methadone tablets from a cottage he bought four years ago at Cullane, Swinford.
Mathison, originally from Britain, was yesterday making arrangements to sell the cottage and his 15-acre holding and said he and his family might move to Brittany.
Judge Devins told him that as an alternative to prison he would have to leave the jurisdiction of the State and not return within 15 years.
After a brief discussion with their solicitor, the couple, who have two children attending Culmore NS, Swinford, indicated that they were reluctantly prepared to make arrangements to sell up and move back out of the country.
At their farm yesterday Mathison said his wife was distraught at having to leave Ireland. They had planned to live the rest of their lives here.
He said he had kicked his heroin habit, and one of the reasons he had come to Ireland some years ago was to get himself off heroin.
In a statement read in court by Det Garda Michael Staunton of the Regional Drug Unit, Galway, Mathison, a native of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, admitted bringing methadone tablets from England back to his house in Swinford.
He was not in it for the profit but to help friends.
There had been a party in the house at Cullane where heroin had been sold upstairs, but somebody else had been dealing it, although Mathison did smoke heroin on that occasion.
Solicitor Mr Jim Murphy said Mathison had got involved in drugs after one his children died at birth.Until recently there had been no methadone treatment clinic in the Western Health Board area, but there was now one in Galway.
In evidence, Mathison told Judge Devins he was trying to help people, but the judge asked him if he really expected her to believe he was acting from "a big heart".
She adjourned the case to the July 11th court, saying that the defendant's property would have to be put up for sale by then.
The judge also stipulated that Mathison should inform Swinford gardaí of the date and time of his departure from the jurisdiction.