Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When the Taoiseach launched the national drugs strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery, in 2017 he said: "The issues highlight the need to intervene effectively." I could not have put it better myself, but that is exactly what has not happened. We have the policy, but no action and no resources to realise it. In that sense, Deputy Joan Collins's motion before the House is a good one. There is a certain irony in it in that what it calls for the Government to do is intervene effectively, which is what the Taoiseach said previously, and to honour the commitment in the programme for Government in regard to the national drugs strategy which, sadly, has not been the case.

The policy intends to move towards an integrated approach to drug and alcohol abuse. While we would welcome that move, it does have consequences for local task forces working on the ground and we have to consider this. If the plan is to integrate drugs with alcohol and not to make use of all of the available resources, and provide additional resources, we may be setting this up to fail. We need to take account of the real experiences on the ground. An integrated approach should be integrating of the skills of those who have been on the front-line in our communities for decades, aligning them with available national resources.

A key part of this discussion is that we should be moving away from criminalisation towards a health approach, but we should not be going so far in that direction that we give full control over the health policies to the HSE and consequently freeze out the experience-led rich knowledge of community-led groups and local task forces. They have vast skills in this area which we need to harness. The health approach means more than medical intervention. It means medium and long term strategies to reinforce health and well-being within our communities and it means initiatives around education, training, retraining, jobs, life skills and all of the other initiatives mentioned earlier by Deputy Wallace.

There is no doubt that we need the authority and the resources of the health service to drive forward this strategy but that is not happening. We are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water and excluding local groups, which is one of the issues this motion attempts to address. The statistics speak for themselves. There were 16,119 drug offences in 2016 and an increase of 61% in drug related deaths over the last decade. The overwhelming majority of drug related offences relate to use and possession and not to supply. In other words, the wrong people are targeted and the process through the justice system commands huge resources but does not solve the problem.

Decriminalisation needs to be taken seriously. It is a shocking indictment of this House that a former colleague, Luke Ming Flanagan, moved a Bill to decriminalise cannabis in 2013 and we are again discussing the issue. As far as I am concerned, all drugs should be decriminalised and regulated. This is safest way to deal with the misuse of drugs and divert resources into more positive and effective measures. The European Monitoring Centre drugs report for Ireland makes it clear that drug use remains prevalent and has become more common among the adult population in Ireland in recent years. There is no point in us being naive about this. Criminalisation has failed everywhere. In Ireland, over 13% of those aged between 15 an 34 regularly use cannabis and there are almost 19,000 high-risk opioid users here. As a society we have been reliant for a long time on the voluntary community sector to provide local supports and services. It should not be forgotten that it was people at the coal-face who were responsible for highlighting many of the these problems in the 1980s in particular.

I will return to where I started. As the Taoiseach pointed out when he launched the drugs strategy, the whole of society is affected to some degree by drug use and abuse in terms of the crime and health implications that result from it. Unless we resource our communities to deal with this issue, the inter-agency approach will not work. We have failed in this regard to date. The motion calls on the Government to implement its own policy by appointing somebody in a senior role to drive this forward and within that to recognise the unique role played by local task forces. It is vital they are an integral part of the drugs strategy. I again compliment Deputy Joan Collins on bringing forth this motion.

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