Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

There is a Cabinet committee on social inclusion which meets as well and feeds into Government policy. I almost annoy people at this stage when I say inter-agency co-operation and collaboration is the only way forward. I do not want to see every partnership, community development project, family resource centre and drugs task force doing its own thing. That is of no value and is counter-productive.

Last week I was at a conferring ceremony in UCD for drug addiction counsellors, I was at one in Coolock the previous week and will attend another in Ballymun tonight. Trained addiction counsellors are being provided in some areas. Many come from the voluntary sector but they have a great deal of expertise and are very good.

I thank everyone for their contributions. This has been a worthwhile debate in which there have been many contributions. The next strategy will stretch as far as 2016 — it would be foolish to ignore the fact that we are dealing with a radically different Ireland — which is the centenary of the Easter Rising and of the 1916 proclamation. At the risk of cherry-picking from the proclamation my ambition is that we would by then be able to treat all the children of the nation equally by the goals we set and our achievements on their behalf.

Drug use changes every day. People are now engaging in polydrug use, alcohol being the common denominator. I am anxious that we have as far as possible a united strategy for alcohol and drug misuse. There is no point in doing this any other way. There has been a great deal of research in this area but more is needed. I was in Milwaukee during the summer and saw some of the research taking place there. Members have mentioned crack cocaine and crystal meth. We need to be ahead of the posse. The researchers are on top of strategies to deal with these drugs as are the Garda and others in the area who plan programmes. There is a good regime of counselling people who misuse cocaine.

The Irish Prison Service has contracted the Merchant's Quay Ireland group to provide counselling services in prisons and that is being rolled out. In my view this will be extremely successful. There is a very good arrangement on prison links whereby a number of drugs task forces have workers dealing with how prisoners will be treated on release with regard to accommodation, education, training and so on. I am confident that a dramatic change of approach has occurred in the Irish Prison Service to the benefit of prisoners.

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