Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Ba mhaith liom ar dtús báire buíochas a ghabháil leis an Teachta Brady as a chuid ama a roinnt anseo ag an díospóireacht atá an-thábhachtach i mo cheanntar féin agus ar fud na tíre gan amhras.

I congratulate Deputy Byrne, Deputy Shatter and my constituency colleague, Deputy Reilly, on their elevation to the positions they hold on the Fine Gael front bench. I notice that Deputy Reilly is not the first deputy leader of Fine Gael from Dublin North. I do not think it is requirement for the job, but it certainly does not seem to do any harm.

I thank the Minister for bringing this comprehensive, innovative and hopefully effective Bill before us. I am glad it has widespread support for its early implementation, using civil procedures that are not unlike procedures with which I was familiar as Minister of State with responsibility for horticulture and food. A premises can be closed down by the Food Safety Authority if it is doing damage to people's health and the head shop certainly falls under that category and needs legislation in it own right. I know the Garda Síochána will welcome the opportunity of using these powers, because gardaí are bedevilled by the anomaly of head shops in communities that are vehemently opposed by communities, but which nonetheless seem to have found a way of continuing to operate under the radar from a legal point of view. As the Minister said, the veneer of respectability high street premises can give to those who trade in these products must be ended, and that will be ended by this legislation. I hope this form of endangerment, particularly of our young people, will no longer be given that veneer of respectability.

I am speaking as a Deputy who represents Dublin North but also as one of the founders of the Balbriggan Awareness of Drugs Group, to which previous speakers referred, some 15 years ago when community activists bravely came together to confront the threatening behaviour and the scourge of drugs in some communities. People such as Liz Fanning and Margaret Wilde, Brian Kinane, Paddy O'Shea and Fran Carroll confronted intimidatory type of behaviour to bring together the community and to give the example of a community standing up for itself, not in a vigilante way but in a way that was focused on helping other parents who may have felt they were unable to cope with the peer pressure their children were under to dabble with drugs.

That legacy has built up a strong tradition of parent to parent courses. The Government has recognised the importance of the courses and I hope it will continue to support them in every way possible and face up to the challenges in this area. Many of the people who avail of them would, on reflection, probably be the people who are best equipped to deal with this issue. It is the people who are most vulnerable who seem to be the most reluctant to reach out and help either because of fear or a feeling of being overwhelmed, or for some other reason. We have a responsibility to try to continue to reach the people who are most vulnerable.

Those parent to parent courses provide a very useful service. They have been added to by the community policing fora around the country. In my area people such as Ena Norris, Zoe Nelson and many others are active, from a voluntary point of view, in providing that link with the Garda Síochána in the community and in the youth area, particularly in youth services such as like Balbriggan Youth Service and Foróige. People such as Derval Cumiskey must also be commended for working along with the Garda to provide an effective response.

As the Minister said, the Forensic Science Laboratory will also have an important role to play in this area. It should be given the necessary resources and be in a position to carry out that work because it seems it will continue to be fairly extensive. That is an issue on which I would seek reassurance. I am sure the Minister has given it considerable thought.

Deputy Reilly mentioned that from a planing point of view, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, could also take action to tackle this issue. I have spoken to the Minister, Deputy Gormley, about this on many occasions and it is and has been considered in his Department but given, as the Minister, Deputy Dermot Ahern, said, that the issue of head shops and the substances being devised is such a moving target, it is far from adequate to deal with this issue from a planning point of view. That has been the Government's response. It is based on sound evidence that addressing this issue needs to follow the course we are taking, and this response is the most comprehensive way of dealing with it.

Other supplementary measures may be needed but this is where our focus needs to be right now. Our focus also needs to be in the communities where even if a head shop has been closed, there will still be peer pressure, a vacuum and a yearning, for whatever inexplicable reason there might be, for people, essentially, to get out of their head on some substance or other. That is reason I believe bodies such as the Blanchardstown Area Partnership, which help many communities not only in Blanchardstown but throughout Fingal, and the Balbriggan Aware of Drugs Group, with its parent to parent courses, all need support, along with the other important services provided by the organisations such as Foróige. They will all continue to be relied upon by communities, particularly parents caught up in the problems being experienced in many of our communities owing to legacies of bad planning or lack of facilities, which continues to be a challenge for us.

I welcome this legislation and thank the Minister and his Department, the Minister of State, Deputy John Curran, before him, and all others who have worked on this issue over the years and in recent months. It is appreciated that those of us who made submissions such as that made by the Balbriggan Awareness of Drugs group last year to the Minister of State, Deputy Curran, when he had the role of dealing with the drugs strategy, should now also be credited and feel a sense of appreciation that their recommendations have been taken on board in regard to the laws dealing not just with head shops but home deliveries, Internet sales and all the aspects with which we have to deal in this legislation.

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