Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While I appreciate that this topic has been chosen, I would have liked one of the Ministers or Ministers of State directly involved in this matter to be here to provide answers. I do not mean any disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy English, when I say that. It was rather difficult to find a relevant Minister this week. Given that next week is budget week, I did not want to take the chance of losing this Topical Issue matter completely by deferring this debate.

While this is certainly a health issue, it is much more than that and it requires co-operation between the Departments of Health, Justice and Equality and Social Protection. I know this is not confined to Dublin but that is what I will speak about because that is what I know. The reality in Dublin is that communities are flooded with what are known as Z-drugs. These tablets are being used with other drugs and with alcohol and are causing havoc and distress. They are pushing people further into addiction and causing an awful lot of distress and pain for families and the wider community. They contribute in a major way to anti-social behaviour and criminality.

Communities are looking at young men - and it is mainly men, some of whom are only in their late teens - openly selling these Z tablets. I could bring the Minister of State right now to a number of places in the north inner city where this open dealing is going on and he could buy whatever number of Z tablets he wanted. I could also bring him to the people who are living beside this open dealing who will tell him about the nightmare of living beside it. A very fine report was published some time ago, which all of the stakeholders in the various communities bought into, called A Better City for All. While it makes wonderful suggestions and recommendations, glaring gaps persist, such as this one regarding tablets. There is a lot of talking but no action on this matter.

The Minister of State might say that this is a matter for the Garda, and it is, but its hands are completely tied because of the lack of appropriate legislation. Gardaí are being asked by the communities why they are allowing this drug dealing to continue. The answer is that they are powerless to do anything. Emergency legislation is needed, and I am reliably informed that if legislation were enacted to deal with Z-drugs, places could be cleaned up in a week. We would all like to see more gardaí on our streets, but in this case more gardaí is not the answer unless legislation is enacted which will enable them to do their work. Unfortunately, it would appear that these working class communities that are devastated by drugs are not high on the priority list.

The difficulty is that there are two relevant Acts here, one being the Irish Medicines Board Act, which was amended in 2006, and the other being the Misuse of Drugs Act, but they contain loopholes. Neither Act is appropriate to deal with tablets because tablets are not controlled drugs. At the moment, if a garda has a reasonable suspicion that somebody is engaging in drug dealing, he or she can search that person. However, if tablets are found, the garda must give one third back to the person so that he or she can do his or her own individual testing. The issue of tablets has never been addressed and in the meantime it continues. It is causing havoc in communities. People are looking at this open drug dealing going on in their areas but they are not overly concerned as to whether it is heroin, ecstasy, cocaine or cannabis. They are concerned about the actual dealing, which is all part of that same milieu or world of drugs. It is open and blatant, but the hands of gardaí are tied.

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