Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Doherty said that drugs are no longer sexy. I would argue that we have been in denial for decades regarding the challenge of drugs. Many of us thought that with the emergence of crack cocaine in communities, women being turned into prostitutes, people going into houses without a stick of furniture and children going hungry it would be a wake-up call. It is probably only certain communities, however, and we talked about that. Cocaine per se is impacting on all societies on all levels whether someone is a chief executive or otherwise. It is a normal part of life. One cannot go into a pub or social setting in which people are not using. It is normalised in that regard and it has an impact.

I was linked with a project to which the local hospital reached out because people in their 70s were turning up at the local hospital on a regular basis at weekends after cocaine. It was a simple step of giving the hospital information about services that were in the community. A piece of work was carried out on that. A pilot was done, and the money ran out. That seemed to be a simple health solution, yet it was not replicated right across the country in other hospitals in other areas. We do not see people learning from a lot of the simple things that can be done with regard to this.

It will be interesting to hear what the Minister of State has to say. He is very new in the job, and it is a challenge in itself when someone is only new. It is going to take at least six months. However, the multi-annual funding is clearly an issue, and the funding with regard to emerging needs. The one thing that comes up when we talk to all the drug task forces, whether they are regional or the 14 that are based around the cities, is that idea of emerging needs and how we need to be flexible enough for the new drug that is coming down the track.