Dan Boyle (Green Party)

It is important the agreed all-party motion gives equality of importance to the issues of alcohol misuse and illegal drug use. In the past we have tended to portray the situation in regard to illegal drug use as a crisis while the abuse and use of alcohol has been seen as a minor problem and some type of local difficulty. The reality is that alcohol, as a legal drug, contributes to most deaths in this country. It is also a lubricant which breaks down resistance, particularly among young people, and enables them to experiment with other types of illegal listed substances. On these grounds, we should be more honest in admitting that the ultimate gateway drug is alcohol.

The ambivalence towards alcohol in our society has led us down a road where we have failed to take the necessary action, either through legislation or informed public debate, to bring about better standards. If there is to be a value to this debate, this is one of the areas we might explore.

I can cite a particular example of the dangers of alcohol without the added complications of illegal drug use. A number of months ago I became aware of an incident in Cork city centre involving a group of young people who were out one Friday night. They were mostly over 18 years of age but there was a young girl in their company who was 17 years of age and who was drinking without her parents' permission, like tens of thousands of young people every weekend. The group of four to five young people left a bar and went to some type of fast food outlet to get food but came across another group comprising slightly older young people of 20 years of age or so and mainly male. That group had also consumed large quantities of alcohol and, having been fuelled with alcohol, it was more menacing. There was an exchange of words which led to jostling and punching. People were singled out, including the 17 year old girl who was picked on by two other women who scratched her face beyond recognition, pushed her to the ground and knocked her unconscious. As she was coming to, a hero of modern Ireland kicked her in the face causing her to lose four front teeth. I cite this incident because that young girl was my daughter.

Experiences such as this happens every weekend. That weekend when we went to the accident and emergency department in the local hospital, there were five similar cases — one involved a young woman while four others involved young men of a similar age. Until we can get our heads around the idea of alcohol being one of the biggest menaces in our society, I do not believe we can even come close to tackling the problem of illegal drug use. Even though it is damaging, pernicious and brings about a culture of criminality, I do not believe it causes the kind of damage caused by alcohol use and abuse in our society.

We have made a number of incorrect political choices on this road. The legislation put in place that allows a voluntary code of practice by the drinks industry is bad legislation. From time to time in this House, we rail about the dangers of self-regulation and the need for independent bodies to bring about better standards. Nowhere is this more necessary than in the area of alcohol advertising. I hope that during the term of this Government, that legislation is revisited. We cannot allow people to police themselves in this area. The knock-on from that is how advertising is used and how alcohol use is glamorised and associated with young people and sporting events.

We live in a country where one of our major exports is an alcoholic product. Despite that, there is a lack of honesty in the debate on alcohol. Such an attitude has led to an ambivalence towards illegal drug use here. While many authority figures have railed against the use of cocaine in recent years, it did not seem to be a problem when it was an upper middle class drug of choice, as it has been for the past 15 years. It is only when it began to be used by those with a different socioeconomic status that more questions started to be asked. In spite of all the deaths, it is often glamorised, depending on the status of the exponents involved and their lifestyles. It is the ambivalence that we have towards taking alcohol that has led to this double standard towards drugs such as cocaine. While we allow this ambivalence to continue, it will be very difficult to put in place alternatives that stop the supply and ultimately reduce its use.

We must admit that the taking of any drug — legal or illegal — occurs for a number of reasons. For many participants, it induces a euphoria. This euphoria is compensation for something lacking in their lives. We can rail all we like against the medical dangers involved in taking any drug in any quantity, but while people feel they take something positive out of taking drugs, our job becomes even more difficult.

There have been innovative proposals on how we might get around this. Some people talk about market mechanisms. Others talk about making illegal substances legal. However, the reality is that we have an economy in this country that supports drug use. While it is an illegal black economy, it sustains the lives of far too many people. We do not offer a better social or economic alternative. While millions have been pumped into organisations like the local task forces, I must wonder, as somebody with a youth and community background, to what extent has too much of that money gone to sustain an administration and how little has gone into providing the actual services and facilities needed to provide an alternative to young people. Until we get that balance right, we will be engaged in an exercise of running up the hill backwards.

I hope we face this debate with more honesty in the future. There are signs that the type of knee-jerk reaction that such debates would have caused in the past are no longer as prevalent as they used to be. Public representatives from across the political spectrum are addressing this issue with an intelligence which I believe has been sadly lacking in the past. However, we need to be consistent in addressing the problem, understanding it and coming up with an appropriate response. Ultimately, we must be honest and admit that much of the approaches we have taken to date have failed. Until we reach that level of honesty, the approaches we need to take might be further away than ever.