Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I call Deputy Ó Murchú to discuss the matter of drug crime in Dundalk, County Louth. The Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, is present. Congratulations on your appointment and we wish you well in your brief.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I also wish the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, all the best. I had a sheet of notes relating to this matter and every time I wrote something down I changed it because the entire process and my involvement with this issue just make me angry. We have never reached a solution. The reason I decided to raise this now was a number of recent events. At 3.35 a.m. on Sunday, 5 July, a family in Dundalk were very lucky to get away with their lives in Clontygora Court following an arson attack. I have been at a number of these attacks over the years but this was by far one of the most serious. In this case two of the family got out, luckily enough, and three of the family were upstairs, the father, a mother who was eight months pregnant and a four year old child. They were forced to jump out of the two-storey building. Obviously, some of them were injured, but luckily nobody was killed. That is the seriousness with which criminal gangs are operating in Dundalk.

As regards drugs crime, one need only do a Google search to find that the Garda has been incredibly vigilant. Since it put a drugs unit in operation there have been finds of €30,000 and €35,000 worth of cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin. We have all seen the national drug treatment reporting system report which refers to an increase not only in cocaine use, which everybody is aware of, but also in the use of crack cocaine. When talking to community activists I have consistently been told about dealers being really sound to some of their customers and telling them: "I know things are not great now and I do not necessarily have a great supply of heroin, but do not worry because I have plenty of crack cocaine and I will sort you out with that". That is the reality, especially in working class areas. We have drug dealers who have been operating for many years but there has been a failure by the State to deal with them.

I welcome the operations that have been carried out recently, and in all my dealings with the gardaí I am happy that they are utterly focused. However, one will never have a meeting with gardaí in which they will not talk about the need for more resources. With regard to the attack I mentioned and a previous attack that occurred in my own estate in which a garda's home was attacked, I must commend the neighbours who were vigilant and called the fire service, whose members were spectacular. In addition, the gardaí are putting operations in place and they are carrying out the necessary investigative work and bringing it to a conclusion. That is to be welcomed.

My difficulty with the drugs problem is about who one should deal with at Cabinet level. I went to a meeting before the last election with the former Deputy, Mr. Gerry Adams, and the then Minister of State, former Deputy Catherine Byrne. She basically stated that one had to have somebody serious at Cabinet level who was willing to drive the project of dealing with dangerous criminals and ensuring there is a sufficient number of addiction services. Gardaí will state that they are constantly arresting people who need services and cannot get them. Services such as the Family Addiction Support Network are vital services that are not funded in any way. This issue crosses the areas of housing, health, education and justice. We cannot allow these dangerous criminals to operate. I want the Government to put somebody in charge. I welcome what is going to be done with the Citizens' Assembly, but we already know what has to be done.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, and Deputy Ó Murchú for the good wishes on my recent appointment. On behalf of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and myself, I thank Deputy Ó Murchú for raising this serious matter.

I begin by strongly condemning the criminal damage by fire caused by the attack on the family on Sunday, 5 July, in Dundalk, County Louth, and the terrible distress for them and all members of the family due to the terrible danger in which they found themselves. It also caused distress to the local community. An Garda Síochána is conducting a full investigation of this matter. The Deputy will appreciate that as a result of that I am limited in what I can say in response to him. An Garda Síochána arrested four men last Monday, 13 July, in connection with the incident. The Minister understands that two of the men were released without charge and a file is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The other individuals were charged with regard to separate matters and appeared in court yesterday, 14 July. The Minister appeals to anybody with information on this matter to contact An Garda Síochána at the incident room in Dundalk Garda station or by using the Garda confidential line.

We share the Deputy's concern about the serious issue of drugs crime as well as drug related intimidation in communities, which involves the targeting of persons who use drugs or their families or friends in respect of a drug debt. I appreciate that the threat of violence to enforce drug debt impacts people's lives and their communities. While the reality is that drug-related crime occurs nationwide, in many instances the communities most acutely affected are already marginalised and contending with other forms of criminality associated with the illicit drugs trade.

Government policy is guided by the national drugs strategy, which represents a whole-of-Government response to the scourge of drug and alcohol abuse in the country. Implementation of the strategy is led by my colleague, the Minister for Health, and the Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy and health promotion, although obviously the strategy includes a wide range of actions for all stakeholders, including the Department of Justice and Equality and An Garda Síochána. There is a specific action in the national drugs strategy in respect of drug-related intimidation. An Garda Síochána, in partnership with the National Family Support Network, developed the drug-related intimidation reporting programme which is being implemented at national level since 2013 to respond to the needs of drug users and family members who may be subject to the threat of drug-related intimidation. Ireland's national drugs strategy is unique among national drugs strategies across EU member states in recognising the need to address drug-related debt intimidation at community level.

Recognising that the issue of drug use and drug-related crime in communities is a complex and multifaceted one, the Deputy might be interested to know about the Greentown project, a research project to examine the recruitment by criminal networks of children in Ireland and to make recommendations for interventions to disrupt children being lured into criminality.

The project is being led by the research evidence into policy programmes and practice project, REPPP, at the school of law in the University of Limerick. It is a strategic research partnership with the University of Limerick funded by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and supported by the Department of Justice and Equality.

I look forward to Deputy Ó Murchú's further contribution. I will provide further information in my closing response.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate the Minister of State's response and I accept there has been a lot of good work and extra resourcing of the Garda. However, gardaí say they do not have all the services they require. A car belonging to the drug squad in Dundalk was attacked at the Garda station. That is the level of brazenness of the criminal gangs. They have operated for too long and we need to deal with them.

Gardaí say consistently that addiction services are insufficient. They lift people for sometimes minor and sometimes more serious crimes and those people cannot access addiction services, so we go around in a circle. I go back to the fact that we need a person at governmental level who takes in the people from health and even from the local authorities and housing because we have issues there. I can talk about my own town, where a large number of serious players and drug dealers own their own houses and have plentiful supplies of money. That is where the Criminal Assets Bureau needs to come in. These criminals use people who are vulnerable as their front end. That is what needs to be dealt with because we are talking about communities that have been living with this for ten or 15 years in a serious way. These criminals are becoming more brazen. We need to take them on.

We also need to ensure we are serious about harm reduction. The superintendent in Dundalk said at a recent joint policing committee meeting that drugs are literally the most serious issue he has to deal with in his region and that he requires greater resources to give the drugs unit what it requires. We have had a chief superintendent who said we will lose an entire generation to cocaine. We need to ensure that this issue is dealt with at Cabinet level, somebody takes control and we can deliver a solution and look after our communities that are suffering from all this criminality.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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An Garda Síochána continues to tackle proactively all forms of drug crime. I know from Deputy Ó Murchú's contribution that it is making a tremendous effort in Dundalk, but that needs to continue and to be supported. The Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau is having significant success in disrupting drug trafficking and the supply of illicit drugs as well as organised crime groups. From the bureau's establishment in March 2015 until the end of June this year, it seized, for example, illicit drugs to a value of €182 million, cash believed to be the proceeds of crime to a value of €14 million and 122 firearms and over 5,000 rounds of ammunition. This work is supported by the divisional drugs units nationwide and, more generally, by all gardaí working in local communities.

With respect to Garda resources working with communities in Dundalk in particular, 184 gardaí were assigned to Dundalk as of the end of May 2020. This is an increase from 147 gardaí, or 25%, since the end of 2015. As the Deputy will be aware, however, a key principle arising from the report of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland is that policing is not the responsibility of the police alone but also involves other agencies of government, such as health and social services, and other sectors of society. This principle is at the centre of a new policy on community safety which is being developed by the Department of Justice and Equality. The policy, which will be given a statutory basis in the new policing and community safety Bill, proposes to establish and support a system of community safety at local level across the country. Through cross-sectoral collaboration and by drawing on the available services, these systems will be best placed to identify support and implement community safety according to the needs of the local community.

We hear Deputy Ó Murchú's contribution and are very much aware of the serious issues at play. I assure him that, working with and supporting the Garda Síochána, and working within government, we will do all we can to try to ensure that this issue is addressed in every way possible.