Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I am grateful to Members for enabling me to address this motion this evening. As the Minister of State at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Noel Ahern, noted, the drug problem in Ireland and the way in which we respond to it are extremely important. Ireland is not unique. It is one of many western societies facing the drug problem. However, we are responsible for what happens in our own jurisdiction. While the drug problem is by no means confined to one EU member state, we must constantly struggle to eliminate the scourge of drugs from our society.

Unfortunately, there is a considerable amount of moral ambivalence in respect of drugs. People will talk about how terrible it is that drug warlords shoot each other's heads off and endanger the public in their sadistic and brutal killing sprees, how terrible it is that addicts shoot up and die from overdoses in doorways in our cities and how terrible it is that our prisons are populated to an unacceptable degree by people who have been led into the prison system through access to drugs and who still have access to them while in prison.

However, there is another world about which there is far less unanimity and clarity. Anyone who smokes a joint, snorts a line, takes an ecstasy tablet or any form of hard drugs and thinks that it is a private matter and that his or her actions have no social implications contributes in a fundamental way to the problem. Certain people argue in public that it is somehow acceptable to consume prohibited drugs and to possess them in small quantities. We witnessed a recent example of such an argument on "The Late Late Show". A person who appeared on that programme argued that if someone wanted to kill himself or herself with heroin, it was acceptable and queried why society did not make such drugs available to the people who sought them. People who advance such arguments are not merely suffering from moral confusion but from a complete absence of any critical faculty.

Some people have argued for the legalisation of drugs. An aspirant to membership of this House has done so and has argued that it should not be an offence to be in possession of heroin if one wishes to use it. Let us examine this proposition. First, it ignores the reality that we are obliged under European law to criminalise the possession of hard drugs so the proposal is a non-starter. We are now obliged by unchangeable European law to criminalise the possession of these drugs.

Even if this particular handcuff to reality was removed and we, for a moment, speculated about the effects of legalising hard drugs or their possession, how could we possibly expect that 15, 16 and 17 year olds would not gain easy access to drugs if 18, 19 and 20 year olds could possess them without infringing the law? It is a non-starter, unstateable as a proposition and should not be countenanced. Whereas it may, like some designer drugs, have a quick rush of popular approval attached to it, it is as illusory and empty an argument as one is likely to hear.

I agree with Deputy O'Connor that resourcing the Garda Síochána in terms of numbers, money, equipment, know-how and technology must play a part in fighting the war against drugs. However, none of us should forget that the gardaí cannot win this war if people are willing to consume this product. The gardaí cannot at any stage hope to deal with the drugs issue if people consume drugs. The sad fact is that as Ireland becomes affluent, there is more money available for those who wish to consume drugs and that in an affluent society with so many opportunities so many more people are being ruined by their addiction to drugs. We cannot, as a community, tell the gardaí that they must solve this problem if we do not bear down at every level through the education system, social and political discourse and our influence, particularly on vulnerable people, and make it very clear that we are unambiguous in condemning the availability and supply of drugs.

Certain speakers, including Deputy Jim O'Keeffe, referred to various studies of drug use in prisons. The studies referred to by the Deputy were carried out in 1999 and 2000 and were funded by the Irish Prison Service. However, we should not be overwhelmed by their veracity. The suggestion that initiation into drug use in prison was rare is far closer to the truth than some of the suggestions in the studies, which were based on prisoners' accounts, would lead us to believe.

Mandatory drug testing will be introduced in our prisons and we are bringing forward prison rules to allow this testing to take place. I strongly believe that prison, which is a remedy of last resort, has failed completely if it permits people to maintain a drug habit throughout their time in prison and emerge on to the streets with a live and virulent drug habit. The Criminal Justice Bill 2004, which is on Committee Stage, contains new provisions to drive more structured sentencing. Given that the Irish Prison Service has sorted out its perennial problem with matters like overtime and there is a united approach from staff and management to the task of building up a professional 21st century prison service, I am very confident that the next few years, particularly in the context of the new prison building programme, will create an environment in which prisoners will no longer be subject to being afflicted by the availability of drugs in prisons.

I could say much more about some of the matters raised during this debate. Minimum sentencing, which was provided for in 1997 by the Houses of the Oireachtas, will be strengthened during the passage of the new criminal justice legislation. There is no point in me lecturing or waving a finger at the judiciary in a hostile fashion. I prefer to appeal on behalf of the Members of this House to the Judiciary to reflect on the law made by this House. We appeal to the Judiciary to ponder that it is laid down in the law of our land that only in exceptional and specific circumstances should the possession of drugs in large amounts not be visited by a ten-year prison sentence. It is not acceptable for people to be found with quantities of drugs with street values not of €30,000 but of well over €1 million and to be given sentences of between three and six years when there are no exceptional circumstances in play. Members may wonder what is the rate of implementation of the minimum sentence laid down by this House. It was as low as 6%. There was a time when 94% of sentences under the relevant section were less than the ten year minimum. That has changed and it is now 79%. That means 21% have got ten years or more in recent times. That has to do with one proposition, namely that the Members who put in place that law, from whatever political perspective, have all made it clear that they really want it to be enforced. I know members of the Judiciary are rightly supposed to be independent of the executive and legislative arms of the State and I would not change that. However, I hope they will be influenced by the fact there is a political consensus in this House that drugs have such a dramatic effect on the quality of life in our society, a prisoner focused sentencing policy, which takes its eye off the overall global effect of the drugs scourge, is mistaken when it goes too far.

I am glad the figure of 6% has grown to 21%, but I will not be happy until the exceptional and specific derogation we provided is only availed of in a minority of cases when people are sentenced for possession of drugs. I hope most Members will not keep quiet on this subject until that message is driven home. One of the provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill is that in looking at the circumstances in which a departure from the ten year sentence is being argued in court, the Judiciary must have regard to the effect of drugs on society. In other words, the social dimension to sentencing must be put back firmly centre stage in the drama of the judicial process, rather than left in the wings unseen and unheard when the sentencing process is at hand.

I know members of the Judiciary see the consequences of drug addiction, day in, day out. We must connect the unanimity on this subject in this House with the public's determination that a strong line be taken against drugs, and the underlying goodwill in the Judiciary to use the new structured sentencing that will be in place, to ensure everyone who is sent to jail with a drug habit has a good incentive to participate in treatment programmes in prison, that such initiatives are adequately funded and available and that the probation service acts as an ally for those who are released with portions of their sentences still hanging over them, to keep them on the straight and narrow. There are so many things that we can do as a society to strengthen the hand of people who are vulnerable to the drugs scourge. We must always remember it is the vulnerable elements in society who are sought out by drug pushers to suck them into the self-destruction of drug dependency. I just want to——

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