Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

If anything, the sale and supply of drugs has gone up. That is proved every week in the newspaper where the local judge is continually talking about the drug problem in Carlow. I hear it myself. Gardaí in Carlow tell me that drug addicts are injecting themselves in the eyeball. Their veins are so badly damaged in other parts of the body that they get some type of buzz from using the drug in this way. In one instance I was told by a garda that the dealers in Carlow town are so terrified of their customers they opted to turn themselves into the Garda station for protection. This is hard to believe but I have been told this directly by gardaí who requested me to raise the matter at national level in the Seanad and ask that the necessary resources be given to them. They literally cannot man the station at the moment.

Ten regional drug task forces were set up nationally as promised under the national drugs strategy for 2001-08. In reality they have achieved little on the ground. In 2003 and 2004, budgetary allocations to the regional drug task forces were only sufficient to cover administrative costs, approximately €60,000 per task force area. That means there are still no active drug prevention programmes in most areas outside Dublin. Senator White earlier alluded to the fact that there are now almost 14,500 heroin users in the State, with nearly 12,500 in the Dublin area alone. The use of heroin in the counties outside Dublin, including Wicklow, Carlow, Meath, Longford, Westmeath and Louth has increased fourfold since 1997. That was reported last year in The Irish Times and was not refuted.

The Merchants Quay drug centre, which is the largest voluntary drug centre in the State, has suffered a cut in funding. Despite the use of its services by increasing numbers of heroin addicts each year, the centre's funding has not increased since 2001. There are just 200 residential treatment beds for over 15,000 heroin addicts in Dublin and a 15-week wait for detoxification beds in the James Connolly Memorial Hospital in Blanchardstown. The ratio of councillors to addicts remains very low at State centres. Of the 15,000 heroin addicts in Dublin, 50% are not receiving any treatment.

The failure by the Government to honour its commitment to provide an extra 2,000 gardaí is clearly having an impact in this area. The commitment should have seen the appointment of 400 new gardaí per annum, on which basis approximately 1,000 members of the force should have passed out over the two and a half years since the election of the Government. That this has not happened is having a significant impact on the fight against drugs.