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

I will share time with my colleagues, Deputies Ó Caoláin and Ward.

I welcome the Bill, which is an important amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act. It addresses a gap in the current legislation regarding those who are exploiting children as drugs couriers and in other illegal drug-related activities. We need to urgently plug this gap in current legislation and criminalise this growing form of child abuse and child exploitation. It should be without question an offence for someone to groom children for the purpose of selling or carrying drugs. Vulnerable children are being groomed in a way that is no different from those who groom children for sexual exploitation. Using children as drugs couriers is just another form of child abuse. These abusers are destroying young lives and robbing them of their future. Gangs are increasingly using children as couriers to avoid the risks of being caught in possession of drugs themselves. They believe that children are less likely than adults to be stopped and searched by police or suspected of having drugs on them and so can operate beneath the radar of An Garda Síochána. These abusers know that children will be attracted by the false glamour and material wealth of drug dealers and are more vulnerable to being exploited. Children are also bullied and threatened into acting as drugs couriers. They often fear the retribution of the drugs gangs and the threat to their families more than they fear the consequences of their actions if caught by the Garda.

I want to speak about an issue in my home city of Limerick. In a recent drugs seizure in the city, crack cocaine was among the drugs seized. Crack cocaine is being sold openly in Limerick, mixed with heroin. The drug is devastating. It has destroyed communities across the world. It is extremely addictive and is regarded as the most addictive form of cocaine. There really is a special place in hell for anyone who sells, distributes or benefit from profits from the sale of crack cocaine. I am contacted almost daily by constituents who have concerns regarding drug use, addiction services, mental health supports, or the crime and intimidation associated with the drugs trade. They often feel that nothing is being done to address their real concerns. From my own work and talking to community workers who have told me about it, I know that low level drug dealing is rife in areas of Limerick. Whereas in the past this activity was undertaken by a limited number of drugs dealers, drugs pushers currently use a network of people, often children, in the sale and supply chain. For drug dealers, children are a cheap, expendable, easily controlled resource to be used, abused and discarded when their usefulness runs out.

They do not see them as children or if they do, they do not seem to care. They only care about the profits they make from selling drugs, regardless of how many young lives they destroy in the process. We need not only to strengthen the laws in this area, but to give those at the coalface of the problem the tools to defeat the drugs scourge in their local communities.

It is an indictment of the priorities of the current and previous Governments that the funding for drug and alcohol task forces was cut each year between 2008 and 2014. I speak as a director of the Mid-West Regional Drugs and Alcohol Forum, of which I have been member for a number of years. Despite the escalation of the drugs crisis, funding for such groups has effectively been frozen since 2014. This lack of proper funding has severely affected the delivery of services for communities, and has led to the loss of expertise, as well as experienced and irreplaceable personnel. Additionally, alcohol has been added to the remit of drugs task forces and forums, without any extra funding or resources being allocated. That is not sustainable. We need to restore funding to 2008 levels, at a minimum. As Deputy Curran noted, former Ministers of State who oversaw the national drugs strategy recently warned that delivery of the plan was "in danger of collapse" as powers are being centralised under the HSE. The current Minister must heed this warning and ensure the task forces are once again made responsible for drafting and implementing local strategies to combat the drugs crisis in their own areas.

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