Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

We need a comprehensive new plan on drug use in this country. The dial has not moved in a number of years. Many of us have come on a journey over the past 20 years with regard to how we deal with this issue, myself included. I acknowledge my colleague, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who has certainly influenced me and I would say many others on this issue. His interventions as a former Minister are the interventions we are still looking at today. We finally have a centre for consumption here in Dublin but nowhere else in Ireland.

What has happened in the past is simply not enough. We need a complete dial change in relation to this issue and Government needs to be brave and make those changes. My colleagues have outlined them. We need a mature strategy on this. It is important to say that when we come to the issue of drug use, decriminalisation does not mean legalisation. Once we cross that line as a Legislature, then we can collectively work together. That is the most important line many people need to get their heads around.

Criminal-based and justice-based actions in relation to this have not worked.

This needs to be health-led. It is obvious now. With 10,000 people arrested every year for having drugs on them for personal consumption reasons, the number of man hours being taken up for An Garda Síochána is absolutely crazy. We need a policy change, and the Government needs to be brave about it. I raise the volume of drug-induced deaths purely because people are often so helpless that they will not seek help. That is the bottom line. There is a stigma. There is a lack of pathways. There is a lack of empathy in some cases. We need an holistic approach across justice, across health and across community to help people. What has gone on in the past has failed. We have to acknowledge that as a country. I hope the Minister of State will be brave enough to come along with us. As a party we do not have to own this. We are just so empathetic on this issue we have to use our Private Members' time to push this forward as something that, as a country, we need deal with.

Finally, I want to address the issue of cocaine use. Cocaine use in this country at the moment is at an all-time crisis. We need a plan, as a country, not just on the criminal side and not just dealing with those bringing cocaine into this country but as a society we need to educate young people. I have gone to too many meetings at sporting clubs and met too many young people, and friends and neighbours of mine, who have become addicted to cocaine because of a lifestyle choice. In many cases these are middle class people who are purchasing this drug. I say as Chair of the sports committee that collectively as a society and all sporting organisations need to say enough is enough because it is in every sporting organisation in this country. Many young people think taking cocaine means they do take on calories, they do not have pints and do not drink as much, they do not have hangovers, etc. However, there are additional costs later on in life caused by the addiction I have seen in young people in my club, clubs around me and all over this country. We need a plan, particularly being led by sporting organisations, to actually address this.

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