Mr. Jim Doherty:

This highlights the overarching aspect of the drugs strategy and how it needs to involve many Departments together. The role of community gardaí has been degraded and reduced. In the district where I work, which is the K district, we are 90% down on the number of community gardaí we had ten years ago.

For young people in those areas, community gardaí are the first point of contact with the force. A good experience and contact with a garda who has been there a long time, knows the job and can form good relationships with young people can be the difference between a life of crime and getting a life back on the straight and narrow. It can really help with these kinds of public order issues. Again, this comes back to the idea that the Department of Health can mind the drugs strategy but there is a lot more to the drugs strategy than what the Department can do. Applying a Department of Health lens to everything that drugs task forces or drug agencies do will miss important parts of the picture, whether these are youth work, the gardaí, family support or, as I was talking about earlier, drug-related intimidation issues. There is not a feeling now that anybody is really taking account of this aspect.