Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have had a review of and reports on the Offences Against the State Acts.

Everyone supports streamlined legislation that is updated, that is fit for purpose, that is permanent and that deals with what this State faces as opposed to emergency legislation. A considerable number of my colleagues have spoken about the scourge of drug crime and organised crime and about what our communities are facing. An opportunity has been missed. The Minister should provide an update about the outworkings of the review. We need to look at the fundamental issue facing many of our communities, which are absolutely ravaged by organised crime, drug crime, drug debt intimidation and the impact of all of that. We are talking about communities which have been devastated by this, which are generally disadvantaged communities with significant poverty and which have been forgotten for many years.

If we are talking about the issue of drugs, we have seen what the Health Research Board has said about the 200% increase in cocaine use since 2017. Between 2022 and 2023, there were 1,000 extra cases. That tells a tale. We have all seen motions going to GAA congress about cocaine use. We realise just how prevalent it is. It has impacted on communities, whether they are rural or middle class communities or both, that probably felt they were protected. They probably were protected. We are aware of the issue with heroin in Dublin's inner city in the 1980s. Many other parts of Ireland were somewhat removed from that. There was an abject failure by the State to deal with that level of criminality and the detrimental impact on communities. We have not learned any lessons. It is a matter of us addressing the fact that there is a significant issue with drug use in Ireland. There is an element of personal responsibility that needs to be looked at on the part of the people who are buying cocaine on a Friday or Saturday night and think it is a harmless enterprise. Whether we are talking about the Kinahan cartel, the small-time operators or the source of this stuff in South America, the fact is that people are playing a part in all of it. None of this is good enough.

There has been an acceptance of the absolute failure of the war on drugs. We all welcome that the citizens' assembly happened. We all need to see more novel means of dealing with the drugs issue. Saying that, we need to be able to deal with the criminality that impacts on our communities. We have all dealt with the families that come to us about drug debt intimidation. We can talk about under-resourced gardaí until the cows come home but the fact is that we have seen significant effort in particular operations. I would always call on people, whether through elected representatives or directly, to deal with the gardaí when they find themselves in that situation. Christy Mangan, who was previously a chief superintendent in County Louth, said that the difficulty is that when people start paying debts, the criminals will realise that the tap is open and they will always assume that the taps stay open. None of that is good enough.

Many people have come to me in the recent period looking for addiction services for their kids but the services do not exist. Many people have spoken about the families who we met outside. There were representatives from the Family Addiction Support Network in Dundalk. I have spoken to the Minister about it before and about the significant work it does for family support, but it is utterly under-resourced. We are trying to fight against this level of criminality without any of the tools that are needed. I have said before that a holistic approach is required. I have spoken about organised crime and about disorganised crime. We all know of estates where useful idiots have run rampant. Sometimes vulnerable people and families are used by drug dealers, but we do not have the powers, whether it is Tusla, the Garda or the councils, to deal with that. I could go on for hours. My fear is that we will never address the resources and the holistic approach that are needed to deal with the drug scourge that is impacting our communities day by day. None of this is good enough.

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