A Garda review of 70 cannabis growhouse cases did not find that a single person arrested at the production facilities was a victim of human trafficking, a major US report has found. The 2019 US State Department Trafficking in Persons report said that law enforcement officers in Ireland “failed to identify indicators of trafficking” and that they “punished” undocumented potential victims for immigration-related offences. The US State Department said that a police officer with specialised trafficking training had accompanied garda teams conducting arrests related to cannabis cultivation crimes. The authors of the report said that, according to the government, Gardaí and the Office of the DPP collaborated to make sure that victims were not prosecuted. "We’re talking about people incarcerated for crimes they were potentially forced to commit; this is a matter of the utmost severity.”

Source: Irish Examiner June 21, 2019 12:45 UTC