Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our witnesses and thank them profusely for their presentation. It was highly informative.

It was a modern look at an evolving campaign by the leading drugs people, including criminal gangs, etc. It leads me to believe that we need a total re-evaluation of the way we deal with this issue. We must broaden the scope and work of the drug and alcohol task forces, individually and collectively. I speak as a former member of a ministerial drugs task force. We learned a lot during that work, but it was undertaken some 20 years ago. Since then, we have been beaten up by the growing breadth and depth of the illegal drugs industry. To combat it, we must have the health services on board at the local and national level. We must also have An Garda Síochána on board, as well as the teaching profession and schools' representatives. I say that because they are at the coalface. They see and know what is going on and they know that they are being beaten as well. This interference of those involved in the illegal drugs trade is also making it impossible to give young people a reasonable chance of a reasonable education.

I do not want to delay the meeting, and I have other meetings to go to as well. We must, however, re-examine the manner and means of how we are treating the drugs issue, including the use of methadone. I refer to whether the current approach is working and is effective or if it is being tarnished by events around it. There is no one way in which we can deal with this issue. It is, though, an important issue, which must be dealt with sooner rather than later. We should not be talking about this issue again in six months' time. We must have something in place to deal with this issue in a new and modern fashion. The crack cocaine issue is getting worse. By driving through areas, one can readily recognise that drugs are readily available and that there is a big campaign by the people involved in illegal drugs to further expand and extend their market.

All that is certainly too big for the resistance campaign that we have under way nationally and locally. We must go through what we are doing in this context again. We must restructure and reform the drug and alcohol task forces. We must also deal with the funding aspect and determine why we are reducing funding while knowing what is happening as a result. In addition, we need regular reviews. There is no point in going away, coming back to the issue in a year's time and then saying that things are not going well and that we must think of something else. We must think about the required structures now. They must be enhanced, empowered and provided with what is necessary. If we do not do that now, then we will return to what will be an appalling vista in this regard in two or three years' time. I mean an appalling vista whereby it will be visibly apparent to everybody that we have failed in our battle against the illegal drugs people. That is all I wanted to say. I have another meeting or two to go to and I have to chair one of them. Those are the problems with the illegal drugs trade as I see it and I would be grateful for any comments. I will certainly do my bit, as I know will all our colleagues on the committee, to try to bring to the fore the issues which have been raised and to respond to them.