Mr. John O'Driscoll:

I am head of the Garda national drugs unit for a short period of time. At an earlier time I was one of the first to sit on the local drugs committee, with Ms Marie Metcalfe, the late Tony Gregory and others. I will address some of the issues involved, having dealt with them at local level and now at national level.

On the suggestion of a mini-CAB, this was something for which Tony Gregory fought hard. When I was chairperson of the supply sub-committee in the north inner city, the head of the Criminal Assets Bureau who later became Commissioner of An Garda Síochána, Mr. Fachtna Murphy, came to the local committee and met the task force. The outcome was that the first eight, nine or ten targets of the Criminal Assets Bureau were people nominated by the local drugs unit in the north inner city, having interacted with the community. A very important target in the north inner city was an entire family involved in drugs supply. The father received 20 years in prison, while four or five members of the family were arrested. All of their assets were seized. A "Prime Time" programme at the time showed the local community marching outside a house in the north inner city, off the North Strand. It came to us and within weeks the house was the first property to be frozen by the Criminal Assets Bureau and the person responsible received 14 years in prison and his assets were taken from him. Coincidentally, he died on the same day as Tony Gregory. He was a main target of the local group at the time.

As Ms Metcalfe stated, she was concerned because some of us who worked with her in the community were disappearing to move elsewhere. We have come back, in my case, as head of the drugs bureau. Someone else who was very much involved at the time is now in a senior position in the Criminal Assets Bureau. Mr. Stephen Courage replaced me in the drugs unit in the north inner city. We are more than willing to meet those with whom we worked at an earlier time to look at assets and put this to the fore in the targeting by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Many issues to do with anonymity and staff are raised with regard to having a criminal assets bureau, mini or otherwise, outside that which is in place. In looking at alternatives and understanding the alternatives in tackling the drugs problem, after I left the north inner city drugs unit and went elsewhere, my organisation sent me to study drugs policy to masters degree level at Trinity College Dublin, where I was joined by a number of doctors, senior people in the health boards and judges. Members of An Garda Síochána have been sent abroad - I have worked with a drugs unit in Copenhagen in Denmark. We have studied and understand. We realise it is for the Legislature to decide what drugs it wants to legalise, but we bring our experience - let all concerned learn from it - through, for example, the north inner city drugs forum. Mr. Courage represents the Garda in dealing with the national drugs strategy.

On the sale of tobacco, organised crime takes place, but it an area in which we have had significant seizures in the State, involving An Garda Síochána and other agencies. Tobacco is for sale on the shelves. Therefore, one must be cautious about looking at particular options. If it was decided to decriminalise drugs, could Ireland do so on its own? What about the shipment in which I, Mr. Courage and others in the national drugs unit were involved at the tail end of last year, when hundreds of millions of euro worth of drugs were seized in a vessel off the south-west coast of Ireland? An Garda Síochána was very much involved in the seizure. If cannabis, cocaine or heroin was in nice little packets on shelves in chemists and it was lawful to sell it, do committee members think this shipment of cocaine, or part of it, would not have arrived into Ireland to be sold in an illicit market, just as the tobacco business has an illicit market element to it, even though tobacco can be bought legally?