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

I am disappointed that the Minister for Justice and Equality has left the Chamber because I wanted to respond to some of his comments. He spoke of the drug-related information reporting programme and referred to analysis that would be done and reported back to him. He does not need that; it has failed completely. No one in communities will ring that number or will engage with it as they have no confidence in it, unfortunately. It has not worked and he should save his time in respect of an analysis. The Minister should have stayed to listen to what people are saying. Deputies are making honest contributions on what is going on in their local communities.

I have been a member of the Mid-West Regional Drugs and Alcohol Forum for about ten years. I am both a community representative on it and a director of it. Our funding was cut in 2008 by the then Fianna Fáil Government and it has not been reinstated. Any tiny increases have been wiped out by inflation. People who work in the projects we support have not had a pay increase since 2008. The Northstar Family Support Group, which I have supported and of which I am a long-time member, recently held a service of hope to remember those who died in our communities. The message of that service is always one of hope but it is a stark reminder of the number of people who we have lost in recent years.

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, who did a good job of going out to the communities and talking to people but whether it is her colleagues, or perhaps the Minister of State herself, someone has failed miserably to deliver the funding that is needed to make it a success. I said that to the Minister of State at the time and I think it is my sixth time stating it in the House. I wish they would work but I have no confidence they will, because we have not delivered any of the money.

I wished to raise some comments with the Minister for Justice and Equality but he has left the Chamber. Limerick has a brilliant CCTV system by which we can see exactly what is going on. We know exactly where people are dealing drugs from, who is moving the drugs and who is buying them. We see the taxis in queues outside houses, while people wait to go in and buy drugs. The guys who operate the CCTV tell me one even can see the colour of a person's eyes from the footage, yet these people are not being prosecuted because there are not sufficient gardaí to so do. Recently, an inspector in Limerick told me that it takes eight to ten months to come back with an analysis of drugs and no charges can be brought until those results have been received. As those people know they will be charged, they deal morning, noon and night because they expect to receive the same sentence at the end. That is something we must examine urgently. It is a huge problem in Limerick and the whole area. As a member of a drugs task force, I speak to my colleagues across the State. The same issues arise everywhere, namely, lack of funding or support. They are left to their own devices and families are left with drug debts, with people coming to their doors demanding money. Families do not know where to go, and the Garda is totally under-resourced. In Limerick in 2007, when a massive gangland war was going on, John Fitzgerald came in and said we needed an extra 100 gardaí for the four regeneration areas alone. They were never delivered and we now have fewer gardaí than in 2007 during that crisis. Drugs are becoming more prevalent in every community across the State. We are seeing a huge increase in the use of cocaine, especially among younger people. Cocaine is everywhere and I estimate that 70% to 80% of people in any nightclub are taking cocaine. Those are not my figures. I expressed these concerns at a recent joint policing committee meeting, where the chief inspector of the Garda in Limerick said cocaine was the biggest problem facing the force there.

Without funding, we are on a hiding to nothing. The Government needs to step up and deliver the funding in order that drug and alcohol forums can do the work they need to do, that is, dealing with the issue of drugs as a health issue, while taking out those people who are profiting from their use.

We can see them in communities driving around in fancy cars, living in fancy houses and putting two fingers up to the rest of us because they know there is little sanction for them. We need urgent funding for those areas.

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