Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Ward, Mitchell and Kenny for bringing forward this Bill to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act and create a new criminal offence to criminalise the use and coercion of children in the sale and distribution of drugs. The Bill will make it a stand-alone offence for adults to use children for the sale and distribution of drugs. It will make it easier for the Garda to press charges against these adult criminals. I welcome the Bill as a tool to tackle the problem of vulnerable young people being sucked into these vicious criminal drug gangs which will use and abuse them until they are dead or locked up.

The so-called war on drugs that has been fought for decades has failed. We need to change the way we deal with recreational drug use and those who are addicted to drugs. Until then, we will forever be introducing Bills to tackle the effects of drugs on young and old people of all classes, and specifically their effect on working-class communities. We need a grown-up conversation about this failure to deal with drug use and misuse, and I believe a citizens' assembly is a sensible way forward. That is required sooner rather than later.

When I talk about vulnerable young people being sucked into these drugs gangs, let me say that I can put names to them. Some of them are dead and others are locked up. Still others continue to run around with those drug gangs. A few got out and have changed their lives. This legislation can only be a part of a suite of measures. What else can we do? It is not rocket science. We need a well-resourced Garda unit to target these drug gangs and to identify the people involved at a young age and an early stage. More importantly, that Garda unit must have the time and resources to be able to deal with the issues and intervene.

We need smaller class sizes. Many of these young people are from disadvantaged areas and leave school early. We know for a fact that people who leave school early are at serious risk of getting involved in criminal activity because all the studies have proved it. We need a DEIS-plus programme. There are certain areas, both urban and rural, that need an intensive and upgraded DEIS school system, where classroom sizes are much smaller because the schools are dealing with difficult and complex issues with students. We need a doubling of funding for the school completion programme because early school leaving is a strong indicator as to whether people will end up in the criminal justice system. We need to work with those young people and prevent them from being sucked into drug gangs.

We also need more social workers, family support workers and youth workers. The austerity measures of the past ten or 12 years have devastated every single part of the section of society that helps and supports young people in working-class communities. We need local authorities to carry out their functions as landlords and move to evict those people who have an iron grip on their communities. I will shortly bring forward a Bill to hold local authorities to account for the actions of their tenants and enable residents and residents associations to bring local authorities to the District Court.

There is enormous experience on this side of the House, to the right and left of me, as there is on the other side of the House, in dealing with the drug issue. It is important that such people are working on the drug problem. We will work positively on this legislation to try to ensure we can continue to support our communities because we live and work in them. We experience our communities and know the pain and grief that are caused by these drug gangs. There are solutions and things we can do. We know what some of those things are but we need the resources, the people on the ground, to work with those young people and try to support them and keep them out of the drugs trade. We do not want anybody in jail. We do not want any young people involved in these drug gangs. We do not want drug gangs. As legislators, we are put into this House to try to solve these problems. We have the solutions but we need the resources to ensure that those solutions are put into practice.

See this speech in context