Stephen Berrigan gets suspended sentence for drug storage

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Stephen Berrigan received a fully suspended five-year sentence for possessing heroin and cannabis for sale or supply at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 23 February 2021. The drugs were stored in two vans at his Clondalkin address.

Judge Melanie Greally said Berrigan acted while in intense grief and to help finance his father’s funeral. She also noted that the facility he provided was valuable to people distributing drugs and that the quantity, particularly the heroin, was large.

The court heard that the drugs were worth €178,463, and that Berrigan had no previous convictions. The judge suspended the entire sentence on strict conditions after considering favourable evidence from the prosecuting garda and the expectation that he was unlikely to reoffend.