Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)

The Government does not have a strategy to deal effectively with the ongoing supply-control aspect of the drugs crisis. As one crime correspondent put it last week, when he quoted a senior security source on the private airfields issue: "It is the simplest and most straightforward method of drug trafficking there is." Despite repeated warnings in this Chamber, the Government has failed to act, continues to be disgracefully negligent on the issue and only now, in its long-winded amendment, does it refer to reviewing the risks involved.

Apart from the basic measure of customs cover and aircraft monitoring, the most powerful weapons against the drug gangs are the Criminal Assets Bureau and, at local level, community gardaí, yet the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has taken almost five years to start delivering the necessary community gardaí in local areas. During these five years of neglect the drug gangs have gathered momentum, with rates of hard drug consumption among our young people now among the highest in Europe.

I observe in my constituency a repeat of the failures of the 1990s. The Criminal Assets Bureau is the other great weapon against drug gangs but I see young, middle-ranking drug dealers in 06 registered jeeps and cars, with lavish apartments and lifestyles, continue to claim and receive social welfare payments, the very practices the bureau was set up to prevent. Many other young people follow the easy money and drugs. The Criminal Assets Bureau should be regionalised and given local structures to stamp out this problem. This is the most effective way to stem the drug tide. Otherwise the Garda drug units, under-resourced as they are, will only provide a fire brigade service and will have no real impact on the ongoing drugs crisis.

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