Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is my first time to address the Chamber. I thank the people of Dublin Bay South for electing me to represent them. I hope to do so to the best of my ability.

It will be 20 years next month since Veronica Guerin was taken from us, leaving behind a young son and a grieving husband. Her relentless pursuit of the truth and her commitment to exposing the dark underbelly of gangland crime resulted in her paying the ultimate price. Clearly, crime pays handsomely. The people profiting from the destruction of lives, families and communities are the merchants of death who our gardaí remain committed to putting out of business. We need to go to the root of what fuels drug crime, stop it from being a profitable practice and a lifestyle to which some aspire. One only has to glance at a newspaper to see the lavish existence the kingpins lead with houses in Spain, luxury cars and expensive jewellery. In just one morning in March this year, armed gardaí, supported by Revenue and the Criminal Assets Bureau, swooped on the Kinahan cartel and seized over €30,000 in cash, along with 35 high-end vehicles from 18 separate locations.

Seeing Christy Kinahan lounging on a Lilo in The Sunday Timesat the weekend, he did not look like a man too concerned with how such a raid affected his finances. It seems to be a mere drop in the ocean of blood money, blood spilled on our streets all too frequently. So many lives have been lost to the scourge of drugs and the blight of gangland crime. We need to open our eyes to the human cost of a prolific drug culture.

People have used drugs since the dawn of time. We are not going to stop that. If the aim is to reduce the demand for drugs and to prevent people from taking drugs in the first place, we will fail. What can we do for those, usually families, caught up in a hopeless cycle of drug use, to assist them to get out of their situation and to break the cycle of drug abuse? Any Member who has dealt with heroin users will note a strong family link and a geographical consistency. I worked in methadone provision as a graduate in midlands towns ravaged by drug use. Now, working in Dublin, I see the same patterns which I saw over a decade ago, except now in more concentrated and desperate cases.

When one works in a community, one sees children grow up in front of one. One sees the impact of poor resourcing for social workers trying to work in challenging communities and the effect social neglect has upon the development of these children. In many cases, one can see why they would turn to crime as a way of life and as a means to earn large sums of money. By properly investing in the education of our young people brought up in disadvantaged areas, we can positively influence the outcomes for these children. It is our responsibility, as citizens and as legislators, to step into the breach left by parents who are caught up in drug use, and to rescue these children from the grasp of organised crime. It is our duty to make it unacceptable for drug crime to ravage our communities, to help those suffering from drug addiction, and to enable their children to escape the environment so limiting to their potential.

There were over 15,000 recorded controlled drug offences in the State last year. Of that, a mere 20 were charged with the importation of drugs. Almost 11,000 of those offences were for possession for personal use. When one sees the massive drugs hauls on the news, one must think there is a serious market at play here and demand does not appear to be waning. No wonder Christy Kinahan is kicking back on his Lilo. I doubt he is worried about the trauma suffered by gardaí who attend the aftermath of yet another brutal shooting in the capital. It is unlikely he considers the post-traumatic stress of a community pharmacist, or his or her staff, held at syringe point by a desperate addict, so strung out he or she will risk his or her own life and others to get a fix. It is unlikely he is concerned by the brutal attacks on a taxi driver, trying to earn a living, when robbed by a lad wielding a knife to the neck, a traumatic experience to go through in one’s place of work. Is he worried about those in the caring professions, such as nurses and doctors in our accident and emergency departments, as well as the social workers who face the daily challenges of dealing with the fallout from drug use? They are the forgotten victims of such crimes.

Moving on from the ravages of drug crime, I also want to address the movement of immigrants into our country. We need to welcome, not isolate, the people who seek refuge or work on our shores. Integration into our culture is crucial for the fabric of society as a whole. We need to respect and recognise their way of doing things and their cultures too. If one looks at other countries in the EU which have failed to recognise this, one sees the damage it does to those countries’ unity and prosperity. One cannot ignore the horrendously disadvantaged ghettos of Brussels and the areas of extreme deprivation in some cities, full of disaffected young people. They are being raised in a country they now call home but with which they feel no connection. They live in a country where they can only blame the establishment for their plight. We must act to combat this in our nation. Failure to accommodate and integrate will only isolate in the long run.

I pay tribute to the members of An Garda Síochána for the outstanding work they do in their service to our State. Although they are not present now in the Chamber but should be, I condemn and shame those Members involved in protest groups which have treated our gardaí with disrespect. I acknowledge the low morale in the Garda Síochána due to cutbacks, the unfortunate closure of Templemore training college due to the State’s financial constraints, and the challenges facing the force, in particular for new graduates on low wages. Anyone with regular contact with members of the Garda knows the commitment and dedication of their service to the State.

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