The Criminal Justice Bill is a “vital piece of legislation” in the fight against child grooming, Joey ‘the Lips’ O’Callaghan has said. 

Mr O’Callaghan was groomed into drug dealing as a child and feels the bill will hand essential tools to the Gardaí. 

In 2005, he was a State witness whose testimony led to the conviction of gangsters Brian Kenny and Thomas Hinchon for the murder of Jonathan O’Reilly. 

Mr O’Callaghan had first met Kenny as a child and it was a relationship that quickly turned toxic. 

“Brian Kenny, he was the one that groomed me,” he told The Hard Shoulder. 

“I was 11-years-of-age, I wasn’t doing great in school, moved to a new area and was quite isolated. 

“I didn’t know what was happening.” 

Kenny was the local milkman and he offered Mr O’Callaghan a job as his assistant soon after meeting him. 

“Unfortunately, Brian Kenny was delivering more than just milk, he was delivering heroin and committing robberies - stuff like that - which I didn’t know anything about,” Mr O’Callaghan recalled. 

“At the time, it was just collecting the milk money from the doors, it was really good, I really enjoyed it, really exciting. 

“Everything was really positive, to be honest.” 

'Literally hell'

After only a couple of months, Kenny asked him to get involved in drug dealing and his life was “literally hell from that minute onwards”. 

“At nighttime, it was just me and him alone,” Mr O’Callaghan said. 

“I’d say within a couple of weeks of first delivering the milk, I put my first bag of heroin through a door.” 

In order to keep him from telling anyone else, Kenny would regularly threaten him and he soon began to physically and sexually abuse him as well. 

“I never felt so trapped in my life,” Mr O’Callaghan said. 

Kenny began giving him cocaine and the two moved in together. 

“All I was doing was functioning,” Mr O’Callaghan said. 

“The milk round was gone then - it was just all out drug dealing. 

“He had me up in an attic room in his house and literally there was just a bed. 

“There was no TV or anything; I just had a table and two weighing scales.” 

If the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill is passed, it would mean an adult who causes a “child to engage in criminal activity, shall be guilty of an offence.” 

The bill has completed Dáil Éireann, second stage.

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Main image: Joey O'Callaghan