Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This is a misguided, flawed Bill. It is more of the same failed policy approach that has brought us to the fairly sorry pass we are now at.

In a way, it is also the worst sort of opportunism in that it plays politics with deadly serious issues such as drug addiction and gangland crime. The bizarre response to that can only really be explained by knee-jerk political opportunism, combined with a complete failure to understand the flaws in the policies we have pursued to date when it comes to drugs, drug addiction and the associated problems.

The Bill criminalises the possession of certain prescription drugs and the synthetic cannabinoid, clockwork orange. As has already been stated, it is illegal to sell prescription drugs. Why are we now making it illegal to possess them? The Minister spelled out the situation. Following the escalation of the gangland conflict in the north inner city, he felt we had to push things forward and responded to a request from the Garda to take this measure. The Garda is now deciding health policy in response to a fairly awful gangland feud in the north inner city of Dublin, and a political response to that will now dictate policy. I would have thought that the Department of Health and people who are medical professionals should dictate health policy when it comes to the quality of drugs and where they should be scheduled. I would have thought that people who deal with the problems of addiction and young people falling into addiction are those to whom we should listen in terms of how we respond to this issue. Instead, the Garda is dictating health policy. That is a bad start, and things are moving in precisely the opposite direction than that in which we need to go.

We have had the law-and-order approach forever, and it has not worked. It never will work. I heard Deputy Ó Snodaigh say we have to think about how we can stop these substances getting onto the streets. Let me tell the House the answer to that question. One cannot do so and one never ever will. Unless one faces that fact, one is on a hiding to nothing. We have to face the reality of the misuse and existence of drugs, learn how to regulate them and, critically, discourage people from getting involved in their misuse, as well as supporting those who become victims of their misuse. That is the only chance we have of dealing with the devastating consequences of the misuse of drugs. Trying to cut the problem off at the supply level or criminalising people on the grounds of drug possession is an utter waste of time. We would want to abandon this approach because, as prohibition has always done, it will force more people into being stigmatised as criminal criminals and will drive them further into the criminal underworld. One would think we would have learned that from the impact of prohibition in the United States when that jurisdiction tried to ban alcohol. That one measure produced the nightmare that is the Italian Mafia and America has been dealing with the consequences ever since.

We are doing the same in our approach to drugs. We are moving further in the wrong direction. The current approach has not worked with other illegal drugs, and we want to take the same approach to prescription drugs. It is a completely crazy move. We need to start recognising that the misuse of drugs is a health and societal issue, and has to be dealt with as such. We might then have some chance of beginning to grapple with the problem and its consequences.

The most important action we can take in this regard is in the area of prevention. It is an area where the very Department that has produced this Bill, prompted by the Garda, is failing to listen to the people who are doing prevention work. Instead, the Department is cutting funding. I again raise a matter to which I referred in the leaders' debate during the general election. I raised it several times, and I will keep doing so and campaigning on it until we finally get action. The same is happening all over the country.

In my area funding for a project, the Oasis project, was been cut by the HSE, which is linked to the Minister of State's Department. An oasis is a place in the desert where one gets water. It is a lifeline, which is what the Oasis project was, in one of the most disadvantaged areas in my constituency, Monkstown Farm. It cost €40,000 a year and two people were employed. They worked far more than they were paid for with vulnerable teenagers in the Monkstown Farm area. They engaged them with services and provided them with positive alternatives outlets for the energy and activities that teenagers have. If the service had not been available, teenagers might have been led into drugs. It provided other supports when teenagers got into trouble of various kinds and enabled them to engage with services. Every mother, father and resident in the area said it was a brilliant service. The two people who provided the service, one a parent and another who had been a victim of some of the very problems young people face today, such as abuse and so on, provided a brilliant service for which they should have been paid three or four times the amount they received. They did that work because they cared about young people and recognised the pitfalls and dangers they face. The service really worked.

The HSE cut the project's funding and it is now gone. I and, more importantly, the residents of the area will tell the Minister of State that many of the children who engaged with the service over 14 years will now end up in trouble, in prison, addicted to drugs or involved in gangland crime. That is guaranteed. Some teenagers who were not in trouble previously have started to get into trouble since the service was cut. I have raised the issue with the Minister many times. This situation can be replicated in disadvantaged communities across the country, where crazy decisions were taken on high by people who do not have the foggiest notion what is going on with young people and disadvantaged communities. They do things that cause real damage and guarantee that people will be pushed into drugs, crime and all the rest, and then they come out with rubbish like this Bill.

I cannot express my anger more directly. The Bill is a misguided repetition of all the failed policies of the past. We need to start listening to young people, those who work with them and those living in disadvantaged communities.

Some young people asked me what we in the Dáil do and whether we have any idea what is going on. They asked me to use some street language. When children are trying to make a positive statement on the straight they do a thing called a "dab". I do not know whether the Minister of State knows what that is. I do not know what it means, but we need to learn what it means, what young people are talking about, what matters to them and what they consider positive activity. We need to support, resource and fund them instead of introducing misguided nonsense like this Bill.

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