Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The mushrooming - if that is not an inappropriate word in this context - of the establishments in question happened over the past nine or ten months in particular. While the Minister says this is a complex issue, the decisions taken in the past week were proffered on the Government over those months, the point being that an entire new generation of children has been seduced into the drugs business in the belief that because certain substances were on sale on the high street, some kind of approval was conferred on them and that they were legal and not harmful. The children's habit will now be fed by the drug barons, who will have a new market.

What does the Minister say to the proposition that it is the drug barons who have been involved in burning down some of the head shops, including some in his constituency? Is there a turf war to win the new market that has been built up over the past year, during which time the Government might have proceeded with more haste to cut off that possibility?

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