Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

The annual report for 2007 of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime states that the total number of drug users worldwide is now estimated at some 200 million. This is a shocking figure, equivalent to approximately 5% of the global population aged between 15 and 64 years. We must constantly strive to ensure that the measures and policies in place to address the problem of drugs are appropriate and flexible enough to respond to what is a global and dynamic issue.

The Government remains resolutely committed to tackling the problem of drug misuse through the National Drugs Strategy 2001-2008. The strategy addresses the problem under pillar headings of education and prevention, supply reduction, treatment and rehabilitation, and research. It is firmly founded on the principle that drug misuse must be addressed in an integrated manner across these headings through a co-operative approach involving the statutory, community and voluntary treatment sectors.

The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, under the stewardship of the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Carey, is the lead Department in co-ordinating the implementation of the national drugs strategy. This co-ordinated and integrated approach, involving all the relevant players concerned with the issue, is the only way in which real and meaningful progress can continue to be made in tackling the drugs problem. Significant resources continue to be allocated to a range of measures dedicated to addressing the issue. A good example of this is the allocation of €50 million to the Vote of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs for the drugs initiative this year. This represents a 16% increase on the 2006 allocation.

We must evaluate the current drugs situation, harness our experiences during the past six years of the strategy and utilise what we have learned from the outcomes achieved when developing a new national drugs strategy for the period 2009 to 2016. Under the remit of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the area of drug supply reduction and drug law enforcement remains a key feature of the Government's drug policy framework. Enforcement of the law relating to drugs very much continues to be a key element in the Government's policing priorities. Underpinning this approach, the Garda Síochána will continue to invoke a number of broad strategic responses in addressing the issue. I would like to see dedicated Garda drug squads in every division, which we had in the past. Some of those have disappeared over time but there is a great need to have such drugs squads.

Under the strategy, the Garda national drugs unit co-ordinates large-scale operations against drug dealing and trafficking and unit personnel either investigate such cases or assist local investigation teams. Policing operations continue to dismantle drug trafficking networks and have led to the arrest in recent times of major criminals based here and abroad involved in drugs. Such measures must continue to be vigorously pursued by the Garda Síochána.

There is also a role for the community alert programme, a national initiative I am involved with under Muintir na Tíre. There is a role for neighbourhood watch schemes and community policing. It is vital we have community support and activity to look out for each other.

Additional Garda resources are coming on stream all the time. Such resources will facilitate the new Garda Commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, in the allocation of additional manpower to areas most in need, including areas with significant drug problems. There can be no room for complacency in our response to drug misuse and the implementation of the national drugs strategy is a crucial part of the Government's work in the coming years.

The Government's integrated approach to addressing the drug problems that threaten the fabric of this country must be viewed by our constituents as a bipartisan commitment by the Government to ultimately achieving a drug-free environment. This would not be unlike the efforts expended in creating a smoke-free environment in workplaces and places of recreation, which have had unprecedented results.

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