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

Mr. Doherty makes an important point. Co-ordination is hugely important. Constant monitoring is required. We need to know where we are going and how fast we are going in a particular direction. Whether the situation is good or bad, we in the community at large need to be alerted. Mr. Doherty mentioned the various entities that are part and parcel of this and need to be at the table.

To get the kind of co-ordination we are talking about with the Department of Education and everybody else involved, who should be the driving force? The organisations involved include the Garda, the Department of Education and the health services. Drug and alcohol addiction experts also need to be involved. We must reduce the burden and show hope to the people who are affected, as opposed to imprisoning them for a start, which is not going to help at all. What is needed more urgently is treatment to reduce the dependency on whatever drug they are dealing with. As Oireachtas Members with constituency offices, we all know that there are various ways of dealing with them. The important thing is that we hold out some hope to the people. It is no good telling them that they are chronic addicts and the addiction will last forever while at the same time telling them we will put them in jail because that is the only way to solve the problem. That does not solve the problem. In actual fact, it makes it a whole lot worse. Who should be the co-ordinating body?