Mr. Packie Kelly:

First, I wish to deal with the issue of the Garda, which was raised by Deputy Ó Caoláin. Certainly, in talking to local members of the Garda, they are as frustrated by this issue as is the community. As there appears to be a degree of greyness around the current legislation as to whether they are able to charge people, I believe they are quite frustrated with it. As for the Garda's level of knowledge with regard to availability, this also is within our report, the availability of this substance is that it is easily purchased in the North, where it currently is legal. The BBC programme in which we participated recently highlighted issues whereby the United Kingdom is trying to bring forward legislation that would effect a total ban on this and they were examining existing Irish legislation to ascertain whether that current ban is effective. It certainly showed up anomalies within the current Irish legislative system that allows stuff like this to be legal as such.

In respect of the mental health issue, we certainly have had experiences of young people presenting themselves, either to accident and emergency units or to the mental health service, in a highly psychotic state. The difficulty is that it is not until those young people come off the drugs and are clean, for want of a better word, that the mental health services then can diagnose and confirm the person in question has a mental health difficulty which the service can treat. Consequently, it really is a chicken-and-egg position as such for the mental health services. I hope I have answered the Deputy's question with regards to availability. What one can do is to purchase this substance on the Internet if one has an address in the North and, as stated earlier, one can purchase 100 or 200 bags. Then, if one is a dealer, one gets one's runners or one transports it oneself across the Border-----