Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am a member and director of the Mid-West Regional Drugs and Alcohol Forum. In Limerick we call it a forum rather than a task force. The drug and alcohol forum in Limerick funds a number of groups, some of which I would like to mention. The Minister of State met with a number of them when she was in Limerick. The Community Substance Misuse Team deals with young people with addiction problems. The Northstar Family Support Project deals with families who are affected by a family member’s substance misuse. One of the groups of which I am really proud is the Limerick city community network. It is a voluntary group comprising people from across the communities, particularly in Limerick city, who come together. They receive no funding but are supported by the task force. Other groups that do great work in Limerick which I would like to mention include Palls, Ana Liffey, the Saoirse Addiction Treatment Centre and Novas Initiatives. I commend the Minister of State for the public consultation she carried out in Limerick. It was very positive.

I am not 100% in favour of the strategy but I wish the Minister of State well with it. Unfortunately, I do not believe the strategy will work because the additional necessary funding is not there to tackle what is a huge problem across the State, particularly in parts of my own constituency of Limerick City. The misuse of drugs in Limerick is increasing almost daily. The continued failure to properly resource those working on the front line to tackle the scourge of drug addiction is simply not acceptable and is not sustainable. The problem worsens.

Local groups and people in Limerick I have worked with and spoken to recently - some of them today - describe the extent of cocaine use in the city as unprecedented. I am hearing stories of very young people being deliberately targeted and used as guinea pigs for mixtures of heroin and cocaine. Crack cocaine is sometimes mixed with cocaine to get these young people immediately hooked on that drug. As the Minister of State is well aware, this is a recipe for disaster. The groups in Limerick I mentioned earlier are having a real positive effect on people’s lives every day but they are starved of funding as the forum is not properly resourced. Limerick does not, for instance, have a detox centre. Most services will say that they have a huge waiting list and that their staff are under huge pressure to deliver basic services.

Official statistics show a rise of almost 25% in the total number of people treated for illegal drug use between 2009 and 2013 across the State. It is estimated that upwards of 1,000 people in Limerick are addicted to heroin alone. The Mid-West Regional Drugs and Alcohol Forum has taken cuts of more than 50% since 2008. Funding in 2018 sees no real increase from what was allocated in 2017. Over the years these cuts have impacted massively on, and prevented, the delivery of drug and alcohol services that are urgently needed in Limerick and across the entire mid-west region. Failure to allocate additional funding means the problem will continue.

The drug task force was established to address the growing alcohol and drugs issues facing the region, especially the city, and yet it has lost more than half of its funding since 2008. It funds a large number of local projects but is now under sustained pressure due to cuts over the years. The Government’s failure to restore some of the massive cuts it has imposed on those working in the fight against drugs in Limerick and nationally over the years is shameful and shows how out of touch it is on the issue. Even in the boom times, successive Governments did not devote anywhere near enough resources to ensure that we could tackle the blight of drug abuse. Now is the time to invest in doing so.

The city of Limerick clearly has a worsening drugs problem. Heroin, the excessive use of alcohol, gambling and the misuse of prescription drugs are causing huge problems across the city and wider region. In the mid-west, the drugs and alcohol forum has provided a drugs project worker who works with students across the third-level institutions in Limerick - the University of Limerick, Limerick Institute of Technology and Mary Immaculate College. This has been hugely successful and the Minister of State should look at trying rolling this out at across the country. It is working really well.

I want to raise with the Minister of State an issue that is brought to my attention constantly. It is the issue of the Criminal Assets Bureau, CAB. People are furious that drugs dealers can flaunt their wealth without fear or favour. They ask how these known drug dealers, who have no visible means of income, can drive quality vehicles. They also ask how their children and relatives can drive similarly expensive vehicles and how can these individuals - again, with no visible signs of support - enjoy the villa-type homes in which they live, often in council estates. How can they afford multiple holidays a year, as can be seen in the photos and itineraries they display on their Facebook pages, while their tax-paying neighbours struggle to pay bills? How can these individuals have the type of social life that has them drinking in well-known hostelries in Limerick most nights of every single week? It is time for the activities of CAB to be expanded in Limerick and for the Government to amend the Proceeds of Crime Acts to ensure money seized by CAB goes back into local communities affected by drugs.

The Minister of State announced a few additional grants. I plead with her to allocate that money directly to the task forces. They should not be put through the hoops of filling out application forms, which I understand are already causing problems that the task forces do not have time to deal with.

The money, if divided among all the task forces, including local task forces, is a small amount. The Minister of State should just allocate it to each one and do so as soon as she can.

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