Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Maloney will appreciate my earlier point about the Government’s ongoing review of this area and that it does not intend to oppose the Bill. I commend the Deputy for introducing this Bill. It is typical of the work he has done in this House, focusing attention on issues of this nature. He has been working diligently in this area for many years, even before he was elected to this House.

I read an article today in the Irish Examinerabout a man called Vincent O'Brien. It stated: "Cork city coroner Myra Cullinane was told yesterday that a spoon, a dirty needle, and other drug paraphernalia were found next to Vincent O’Brien’s unconscious body in a toilet cubicle in Dunnes Stores on North Main Street, Cork, on 2 December." That is the reality of drug crime. There are very few crimes and little criminal activity that are not related in some way to the drug situation and the demand for drugs. Prostitution was mentioned earlier. I am quite sure if one goes down to low-level crime - if it can be termed that - such as burglaries, robberies and muggings, one will find they are connected in some way with the drug situation.

If any citizen feels they can engage in drug-taking at a recreational level, be they middle class, students or whatever, and not think they have fuelled a gang, as well as a situation that resulted in the death of somebody like Vincent O'Brien, then they are deluding themselves. The gangs that reap windfalls of money as a result depend on middle class drug-takers to fuel what they do. Drugs are in every city, town and village. Middle class people have a better way of hiding it while working class communities are generally devastated by it. We all have a collective responsibility for the deaths of people like Vincent O'Brien, as well as for the children born with drug dependency and for the young people who find themselves imprisoned for long stretches or dead as a result of their involvement in the drugs trade. I have seen where young people, who feel locked out of the mainstream economy and society, find somewhere else to get empowerment. The drugs trade is there willing and able to take them on and give them that sense of empowerment. They find it glamorous, lucrative and empowering.

Many of the issues raised today are valid. There is a need to see reinvestment in areas which have been devastated as a result of drugs and from the proceeds from this crime culture and criminal activity. We have much work to do, notwithstanding the Deputy’s legislation and the Government’s ongoing review of this area. This is an issue about which we have to think differently. Generations have been stolen, families have been devastated and people have been afflicted by drugs. It is difficult, trying and monumentally hard to overcome drug addiction. It is difficult to contemplate how hard it is for some addicted to drugs to get clean and on the better path. We have not helped in our public discourse, be it in the political or media sphere. We have denigrated those who have this affliction, calling them names and describing them as a subspecies, and believing it would be better if they were just moved on.

Deputy Maloney’s Bill focuses on those at the top of society living the high life from the proceeds of crime. There is much goodwill in this House which will allow us to move on this. The message must go out that if, as private citizens, we think there is no connection between a drag on a joint or a pill taken in a nightclub and the death of someone like Vincent O'Brien, then we are lying to ourselves. We have to constantly and consistently spread that message in society because Vincent O'Brien's death is the fault of each and every one of us. We must take it on the chin and take responsibility for it to ensure we do not have another case like it. If Deputy Maloney's legislation can bring us some somewhere along the way, then it will be considered in the wider review the Government is undertaking.

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