Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements and contributions. I will start with Mr. Ryan and the perspective from the Department of Justice. Speaking from the perspective of my community, over the past 20 or 30 years the consensus would be that there has been an abject failure and the approach taken by the State has utterly failed our communities. It fails the victims of drug addiction and it also fails their families and wider communities. The prevalence of drugs, their sale, use and abuse in all forms in public spaces, whether in public housing, on public streets and canals, on buses and trains and in schools and playgrounds, means there is no place left in the country where drugs are not available and are not being used in some form or another. That is a damning indictment of where we are as a State. It is totally unacceptable. I accept the initiatives that have been taken recently and the programme with two trial sites. I have looked at that in detail and I think it is a very promising initiative from the point of view of the concept and the thinking behind it. However, is having only two trial sites anywhere near adequate? What is the proposal to increase the scale of this?

We have heard talk of community efficacy and building the resources of the community to withstand criminal influence. Considering how normalised and pervasive this anti-social criminal activity is, what resources will be required to build community capacity to take it on? I think that individually and collectively communities are taking a position - whether consciously or subconsciously - to defend themselves from it. They do not feel they are being backed up. They do not feel that the support is there. That is a really scary place for individuals, families and communities to be in. I would like to hear what can be said to reassure those communities, individuals and families that the State appreciates the enormity of it and is scaling up to address it in a meaningful way.