Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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118. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality how he intends to address the prevalence of drugs in rural Ireland and its consequences on community safety and criminality in rural areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12683/25]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I wish the Minister and Ministers of State well in their new roles. I compliment An Garda Síochána, the Revenue Commissioners and other statutory agencies on the work being done locally and nationally to deal with the scourge of drugs. As we all know, drug addiction and drug abuse are very complex issues and we need a multifaceted approach that includes heath services rehabilitation as well as the criminal justice system. I ask the Minister to outline any additional measures that will be implemented locally and nationally to deal with what is a growing and very concerning epidemic at present throughout rural and urban Ireland.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for his long-standing interest in this issue and for raising it. Tackling the scourge of drug dealing and targeting the work of organised crime groups, which inflict intimidation, violence and misery on families and communities in rural Ireland, is a top priority for the Government and our Department. As part of budget 2025, €36 million has been allocated to youth justice services. This investment will facilitate an increase in the capacity of youth diversion projects for the young people who need them the most, as well as increased supports for families and early interventions for children who may be at increased risk of becoming engaged in criminal activity. This approach is strongly supported by evidence from the University of Limerick. The projects are community-based, multiagency youth crime prevention initiatives that primarily seek to divert young people at risk of involvement in antisocial or criminal behaviour, or both. I was very pleased to announce two new projects last month, which will achieve the target set out in the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 of full national coverage.

The Government is also fully committed to providing An Garda Síochána with the resources it needs to fight crime. This is reflected in the unprecedented allocation of €2.48 billion in budget 2025. That was a 27% increase in budget since 2020. We were delighted to witness 149 new gardaí passing out of Templemore two weeks ago and to see more than 200 trainees, the largest intake since 2019, enter the Garda College recently. This increase in Garda numbers is allowing for sustained investment in front-line policing and in specialist units such as the very successful drugs and organised crime bureau. An Garda Síochána continues to implement the enhanced national anti-drugs strategy in Operation Tara, the focus of which is to disrupt, dismantle and prosecute drug trafficking networks at all levels, namely, international, national and local, that are involved in the importation, distribution, cultivation, production, local sale and supply of controlled drugs.

The Department of Health leads on Government policy in the area of drugs, and this policy is guided by the whole-of-government national drugs and alcohol strategy, which sets out a health-led response to drug and alcohol use.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I look forward to more youth justice projects being rolled out. They are a great investment in our young people and a great investment in communities where there is particular disadvantage.

As the Minister of State will be aware, this issue needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency. It is really heartbreaking to listen to parents, siblings and family members who have lost loved ones through the use of drugs. They are victims of the people who are peddling drugs and causing untold hardship in every community. I recalled in this House previously that I listened to a mother who lost her son and husband. She outlined very clearly the role drugs played in their deaths. They were two young people. It is absolutely appalling. We also need more awareness campaigns, and not just for teenagers or young adults. Based on what I hear in weekly conversations, we need campaigns for every age group in the country. We are hearing daily of the prevalence of drugs in places we never thought they would be present. The Government has an obligation to provide safer communities for all and the one thing we hear about nowadays is that drugs are everywhere.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy represents a Border constituency and I re-emphasise there is ongoing close co-operation between An Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland to tackle cross-Border criminality, including through the mechanism of the joint agency task force established under the 2015 Northern Ireland Fresh Start Agreement. This task force is producing results and helping to keep people safe in really practical, visible ways through customs seizures, identifying victims of human trafficking and joint days of action against organised crime groups. North-South co-operation in policing and criminal justice continues to be a priority for the Government. The Minister met his counterpart in Northern Ireland, the Minister, Naomi Long MLA, last week to discuss how best to combat serious and organised crime on our island. We look forward to continued co-operation on that.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State and again welcome his emphasis on the need for intensified cross-Border co-operation because we know these evil criminals who are peddling drugs across borders. There should be no tolerance for people who are peddling drugs and passing around cannabis or a line of cocaine, whatever social stratum they come from. We have all listened to presentations where professionals working in this area outline the horrors inflicted on people through the use of drugs. We need to get that message out very clearly.

I fully appreciate that we need to support people who unfortunately become addicted through different facets of their existence and of their lives. I have helped some of those people, alongside local support groups, in my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan and across the north east. We need to resource the advocacy groups who are working with parents and with victims of the use of drugs. I know people who have recovered who are in gainful employment today, rearing their families and contributing to society. Thankfully, we have those instances where people with adequate supports can recover. We want to ensure in all policies that we do not lose sight of the fact that people can recover with adequate supports. At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the fact that criminal gangs and the people I mentioned earlier who are peddling death and destruction in every community in our country must be dealt with through a severe criminal justice system.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We have to be absolutely straight in the sense that Ireland at the minute is absolutely awash with cocaine and when we are dealing with addicts who would previously have had an issue with heroin. We are probably talking about crack cocaine and that obviously leads to a particular set of issues particularly as regards crime and the impact on the wider community. I agree with Deputy Smith. He is probably talking about the family addiction support network that we have both engaged with and that deals with families who are suffering because of the issues caused by addiction. We could not have enough resources for youth diversion projects such as those being operated at The House in Cox's Demesne Youth and Community Project, Muirhevnamore and beyond at this time. We need to get absolutely real. We are talking a multiagency approach. We need to deal with the fact of ongoing criminality, the bad examples that exist that we are all aware and know of. We have seen examples of where the Criminal Assets Bureau has taken action. We need to see more of that. I have seen drug dealers who have had houses taken off them. It is just the cost of doing business and then they are back in action again. I have spoken to the senior Minister before about the chaos caused by drug addiction and by criminality and pointed out that we do not have the powers, whether we are talking about Tusla, the councils or right across to An Garda Síochána. There needs to be a real conversation. We need a real plan to deal with all of us.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Smith has referenced community safety and criminality in rural areas in particular, as has Deputy Ó Murchú. I reiterate that rural and community safety is not just a job for An Garda Síochána alone. It requires a multiagency, multisectoral and a whole-of-government response. Supporting the work of our national rural safety forum, the Department of Justice first published the Rural Safety Plan 2022-2024. That plan has a vision to ensure people in communities in Ireland feel safe and are safe in their homes, in places of work and in their local environment. It does so by identifying five key areas on which we will focus to achieve the overall goal. These are: community safety, burglary and theft, roads policing, animal crime and heritage crime. We are going to produce a second rural safety plan for 2025 to 2027 later this year and we can speak further about that in due course.