#661 Is Paying a Drug Debt Ever Justified? ( With Dr . Eoin Lenihan)

In this powerful and unsettling episode, Niall sits down with journalist and writer Dr Eoin Lenihan to unpack his reflections after spending a week in County Clare.

Drawing from conversations with locals — including a farm supply merchant — Eoin recounts a stark and troubling story: cocaine has reached deep into rural Ireland, and the fallout is devastating families. He tells of a well-known farming family whose teenage son accumulated €60,000 in cocaine debt. Dealers arrived at the family home demanding payment from the father. Desperate to protect his son, he paid. When the son later ran up another €40,000 the father couldn’t cover, the intimidation escalated — the family’s tractor was set on fire, with a chilling warning that the house would be next.

Niall focuses on what he believes is the most confronting part of this story: the shift in tactics. Drug dealers now routinely target parents to settle their children’s debts. Rural communities are living in fear, and what was once seen as an urban problem has firmly embedded itself across the countryside. Even young people from nearby Gort are avoiding nights out, saying the social scene is saturated with drugs and no longer enjoyable.

At the heart of the conversation, Niall asks listeners a deeply difficult question:

If your 16-year-old son owed tens of thousands to drug dealers, would you pay the debt to protect him — or would you go to the police?

This episode doesn’t offer easy answers. Instead, it opens an honest discussion about fear, responsibility, community, and the growing grip of cocaine on Irish family life.

A sobering conversation that asks: how did we get here — and what do we do next?