Mr. Pat Carey:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for this opportunity to present our ideas and thoughts. I thank the members for their attention to what we are trying to promote. Our task force covers the area from Clontarf, Howth, Darndale, parts of Baldoyle and some of the Dublin 3 and Dublin 5 areas. At local level we are mandated to implement, in as far as we can, the National Substance Misuse Strategy.

I have been involved in this work for some time. The argument I would put forward at this stage is that it is time for society to look in new ways at the how addiction is seen and treated. This is something I have come to slowly, but now is the time to place this whole debate into the health space.

When I was in the Department this issue arose on two occasions. There was extreme reluctance to go down that route and the war on drugs was constantly mentioned, in here and elsewhere. I never believed in the war on drugs. There is a huge complexity attached to that whole debate and we need to mediate it. The Houses of the Oireachtas have a key role in that regard. Addiction should be treated as a public health issue and I believe there are the beginnings of acceptance for that argument. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin for helping to open up the debate and we will gladly contribute to it.

Criminality stems from addiction, it is not the other way around. Anybody who represents a community which is in any way disadvantaged will be aware that the incidence of criminality and disadvantage are all closely linked together. Any changes in the law on decriminalising drugs for personal use should be part of a broad public health review. We are probably ready at this stage to hold that debate in Ireland but it needs to be careful and thoughtful.

Something introduced in another jurisdiction is not the strongest argument going for introducing it in Ireland but there is sufficient evidence available that it helps the person likely to be a victim of substance misuse if there is another approach to their treatment and the criminal justice system is not strictly part of it. In the same way that we have managed to devise sanctions for the overuse and misuse of alcohol, I have no doubt that the same approach can be adopted in tackling abuse and misuse of substances such as cannabis and others.

To allay public fears, we must make the distinction between decriminalisation and legalisation as these are two very separate arguments. It would be futile for us to try fighting in public on the merits of one over the other. Strategies have been developed in Ireland for some time and some people in this room were pioneers in how the process was driven through the years. They know that the best routes forward are enlightened ones.

I will use the task force we represent as an example. The most recent figures available from the Garda indicate that 79% of detections are for simple possession, with 80% of detections in the most disadvantaged parts of the task force area. The total number of detections were 557, with 445 from the parts of the constituency that would be regarded as most disadvantaged. There is no point in decriminalising certain categories of drugs unless that is done in conjunction with other changes in tackling addiction. That is down to resourcing, and there must be a serious increase in the level of resourcing across the board. It is very easy to trot this out but evidence can be made available. The Health Research Board and other research bodies have much evidence accumulated over ten or 15 years to demonstrate that any point we make can be backed up.

Resources need to be found to change the culture that facilitates and normalises addiction. Certain parts of large urban areas in this city and others see, regrettably, very young children introduced to substances that lead rapidly to addiction at a very young age. Programmes grounded in the primary sector, for example, must be implemented seriously and in a widespread fashion. I urge this committee to encourage the educational sector to be much more proactive in the way it approaches the implementation of the strategy, both at a local and a national level. There is a wide variety of programmes.

In future, we can learn from other countries and particularly what has been done when they have gone down the decriminalisation route. We must adopt a humane and health-focused approach for people apprehended with cannabis for personal consumption and treat those people as patients rather than criminals. Law enforcement resources must be targeted at drug suppliers and gangland crime. Task forces are well positioned to identify needs and engage communities but, ideally, policy changes are needed to support those in addiction and punish those engaged in criminality.