James Breen (Clare, Independent)

Ireland has seen great advances in recent years economically, industrially and socially. With this change has come a sharp increase in crime. Drug use in particular has risen rapidly and has left far behind it those institutions that might protect and guard society from the dangers and crimes associated with the drug trade. In County Clare the number of drug samples forwarded by the Garda to the State Laboratory for analysis has already increased by 78% this year alone. Despite the best efforts of the under-resourced Garda, the amounts seized represent a mere fraction of the real problem in the county where one Garda superintendent has acknowledged publicly that there has been a significant increase in the availability of hard drugs, in particular heroin, and that this rise has led to a major increase in associated crime. However, Clare has only two permanent members and one temporary member of the Garda Síochána assigned to the Garda drug unit for the county.

This summer will see a large welcome influx of visitors to Clare, in particular to various festivals. Miltown Malbay will see the annual pilgrimage of thousands to the town for the Willie Clancy music festival. There is an obligation to have the festival properly policed. At present Miltown Malbay has one garda and one sergeant, whereas in the recent past we had four gardaí and one sergeant. I call on the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to address this matter urgently. The emergence of the Criminal Assets Bureau in the last decade has been welcome. However, slowly the wide-ranging powers available to it have been diluted following a series of court challenges to its licence. As the Legislature we must do all we can to ensure proper investigative powers available to the bureau are maintained.

Equally, proper sanctions should be available to judges. There is no point in giving them the power to impose supposedly mandatory sentences when they cannot be applied. The court system requires that a reduced penalty be applied where a defendant pleads guilty to an offence from the outset, which prevents the imposition of a mandatory sentence. We require stiffer sanctions with minimum sentence recommendations as opposed to mandatory sentences.

In Clare we are somewhat fortunate, as our sitting District Court judge has adopted a no-nonsense approach to drug offenders coming before him. Cases are regularly adjourned to allow for analysis of supervised urine samples which are tested for drug and alcohol use over a period between four and six successive weeks. This is done in conjunction with appointments with the probation and welfare service. This approach has helped to rescue some of those who may have been in the early stage of addiction and helped them get back on a straighter path. However, locally our already overworked GPs have difficulty at times in helping defendants meeting court testing requirements. The HSE should take on the role of establishing centres throughout the community to accommodate such testing while at the same time providing drugs awareness programmes and counselling services.

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