Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise before I start speaking because I am extremely angry and disheartened at the legislation's short-sighted vision for tackling gangs. The legislation is an attack on the addict and does nothing to dismantle the drug trade at a high level. If one went out onto the street right now one will meet people with benzos in their pockets. It is dealing with the person lying in the doorway, the person in the hostel and the young man in an estate. Arresting such people will not bring down the drug trade. This legislation will create a logjam in the prisons and in the courts system. This legislation is the weakest link in the chain. It is simply a reaction to make it look like we are doing something about the north inner city and the drug trade.

I shall outline what happened to drug services over the years. When a drug was banned and when the economy changed, people moved from one drug to another. When heroin disappeared crack cocaine came in. When the economy improved cocaine usage increased. The types of drugs used keeps changing and the services cannot keep up.

We have had a benzo problem for the past 15 years and the services are only just beginning to realise that we need extra beds and equip ourselves to deal with the likes of benzo fits. Now we are going to try and further force benzos out of the market but addicts will shift to another drug. It will take another ten or 15 years for us to cop on to what that drug is and how to deal with it through drugs services. Only a handful of beds are available for addicts coming off benzos. There are a couple of beds in Beaumont Hospital but they have a waiting list of several months. Again, this legislation attacks the addict. Attacking the supply of benzos will lead to addicts suffering benzo fits that may occur in a hostel or at home if they cannot get a hold of drugs.

Empty blister packs were mentioned. People in this city walk across empty bottles and cans every day. My child would not look at an empty blister pack when walking down a road because it is a piece of litter. Drawing attention to empty blister packs is completely irrelevant in this argument. We should be happy that the blister packs are empty and not full because then they would be harmful.

Drug laws have completely failed. Removing drugs at a low level simply plays into the hands of drug dealers. Low level drug dealers will have drugs taken from them. Do Senators think that drug debt will just disappear? No, low level dealers will have to sell a larger quantity of drugs the next time to make up for the quantity that has been taken off them on the street in order to pay the drug dealer that these laws will never reach.

I call on Senators to reconsider what they are doing here. I urge them to have conversations with users of these drugs. Of course, we need to keep them safe and understand what is in these drugs. This legislation does not do that and drives the problem further underground. I am really upset that we are taking 1 million steps backwards in terms of addressing addiction. We can keep saying that this legislation is not addressing addiction and that we will address it as a health matter, but this legislation is an attack on addicts. The legislation will affect injecting rooms at some level. Even if people are allowed to have drugs on them within a certain vicinity of these injecting rooms, if gardaí can arrest people for having zopiclone in their pocket, do Senators think they will not use the fact that there is an injecting room in the city to stand so many feet away from a user in order to make an arrest? If gardaí are seen anywhere near the city centre then users will not avail of the injecting rooms. Known drug users will be afraid to use the injecting rooms for fear of being arrested for the possession of drugs.

I was hopeful at the beginning that Sinn Féin would support my stance but it decided not to do so. I shall table amendments next week but today I ask Senators to reconsider their views before trying to push this legislation through.I am really confused that people cannot see that this does not hit the intended target and that it has unintended consequences of which people are not aware. On this morning's Order of Business I urged that anybody planning to support the Bill should take five minutes to come to talk to me to understand its implications, but nobody did, which was disappointing. Between now and next week when the Bill goes through, I ask that I bring Senators to talk to the people these amendments will affect. The hostels will gladly open up to Senators. Nine out of ten people there are strung out on zopiclone and this affects them because the next time they go to buy something and have a small amount in possession they are at risk of being arrested.

That was a complete rant because I am actually just angry.