A highly qualified Longford carpenter has been spared jail after he admitted driving to Dublin to buy over €18,000 worth of heroin.

Robert Nevin (32) and another man drove up from Mullingar in Nevin’s van and collected the drugs but were caught after gardai pulled them for breaking a red light

Nevin of Aughafad Heights, Longford pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to knowingly permitting on August 15, 2012 the sale, supply or distribution of a controlled substance to take place within a vehicle under his control and management.

Judge Martin Nolan suspended a three and a half year sentence.

Garda David Charles told Gerardine Small BL, prosecuting, that he was on patrol in a garda car when he saw a white Ford Transit van breaking a red light and he pulled the van over.

He noticed drug paraphernalia, including tin foil, cigarette papers and loose tobacco inside the van and thought the two men in the vehicle seemed nervous.

He carried out a search of the van and found a package containing 120 grammes of heroin inside the driver door. The estimated street value of the drugs was €18,315.

Nevin has five previous convictions but none of this nature.

Kieran Kelly BL, defending, said his client was a qualified carpenter who, by the age of 23, was running a carpentry business out of Bundoran, Co. Donegal and serving Sligo and other areas.

His business went downhill in 2007 and this coincided with his mother’s death. Counsel said Nevin dabbled in heroin at someone’s house one night and went back the next day to try it again. From there he went on to develop a full blown heroin addiction.

He said his client is a highly qualified carpenter and that he had a very limited roll in the collection of the drugs. Judge Mary Ellen Ring previously sentenced his co-accused, who has a number of previous convictions for drug dealing, to three and a half years with two suspended.

After his arrest Nevin told gardai he had agreed to lend his van to another man who wanted to travel from Mullingar to buy the drugs. At the last minute he said he decided to go along too.

The other man was to give Nevin half a gramme of heroin and diesel money for the use of the van.