Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to be present and it is nice to be in the Chamber. I sat here during the health sub-committee hearings on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill for a number of weeks. The atmosphere in the Chamber was sombre because we were dealing with people's lives. Today we are doing the same.

The former Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy, Senator Ó Ríordáin, made it clear that identifying people who are addicted to drugs, legal or illegal, is something we do on a daily basis in our communities. One of these people was, unfortunately, found dead not far from my home recently. I agree with the Senator that those who have been addicted and who are tarred because of their condition are looked on like our second cousins in the corner whom we never want anything to do with.

My role as Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy is to listen to what people have to say. We are in the process of putting a strategy together and there will be public consultation. I will ask all those who contributed to the debate, the many people I have met in communities down through the years, some of whom I have spoken to, and Deputies to make sure that when the process is under way, they all fully participate in it because it is about people's lives. It could be ours sons, daughters, grandchildren or someone from our extended families who, unfortunately, become trapped in one of the worse scourges facing society. There is not proper legislation to address many of the drugs used by young people. The Bill partly addresses that and makes sure that in the future, drugs cannot be allowed to come on to the market and allowed to fester. This happened in one part of the country where young people died.

I assure Senator Ó Ríordáin that I have no intention of allowing the clean injection centre proposal to fall off the table. When I was spokesperson on drugs policy for Fine Gael in opposition, it was one of the ten points I included in the document I put together. It was second on the list, with the first being detox beds, particularly for people aged under 18. I have no intention of letting it fall off the table. It is due back in the autumn and I will do my best to make sure the first pilot clean injection centre will be in place next year.

Last week on Merchants Quay I had a meeting with the residents of St. Audeon's Terrace who on a daily basis encounter discarded needles. I spoke to them about the clean injection facilities and not one person opposed them, no matter where they will be located. We need to step up to the mark. For too long, addicts have been seen as misfits and people who do not belong to society. Last week, I celebrated the lives of those who have died from addiction and suicide in St. Matthew's Church, Ballyfermot, and the Church of St. Agnes in Crumlin. I am always reminded when I attend the celebrations for these people, both young and old, that the beautiful framed pictures could be of one of my children, nieces or nephews or grandchildren. I am always taken aback by the community's response to people who are less fortunate than ourselves and who get up caught in drug and alcohol addiction.

Senator Norris is correct that we have neglected parts of our society for too long. He hit the nail on the head. Parts of Dublin city and the country have been neglected not because of a lack of funding but because of a lack of infrastructure to deal with people who live, in particular, in social housing and council complexes. I spoke at length when I was Lord Mayor and in the Dáil about councils across the country having a responsibility to look after their tenants. I visit flat complexes in my own area and see excrement, urine, needles and other paraphernalia discarded on the steps. I would not like my family to have to climb 75 steps past all this to the third or fourth floor of a flat complex on a daily basis. Councils across the country and Dublin City Council, in particular, need to step up to the mark. The council has allowed complexes in the inner city to become uninhabitable and derelict. People do not want to return to them even when they are refurbished. Bricks and mortar are not the solution; it is much more complex than that.

I am happy that Members have said they will support the Bill, particularly Senator Clifford-Lee. I agree entirely with her remarks. I come from an area that has been devastated by drugs and I have been dealing with the issue since I was a voluntary youth worker locally in the early 1970s. One of the problems with addiction is that addicts who have entered their 30s or 40s could be wiped off the list because they have gone so far that it would be difficult to bring them back. We need to focus on young people from the day they are born in these communities and bring them through a process with their families and communities that emphasises that education is the sole way to make sure they have a life ahead of them. I am very much in favour of using the national drugs strategy to deal with under 18s who are addicted at the moment. They find it difficult to enter a detoxification programme. That is key to helping young people.

Senator Norris said money fuels the drug culture in our society but greed is also a factor. When young people see somebody down the road who does not have a job and who left school early driving around in a BMW, they see that as the easy option and that is what they go for. It is a sad option and we need to stop it.

I do not want to criminalise anybody who takes drugs because of addiction but decriminalisation is a complex issue and it has to be worked out properly before we can say people should not be criminalised for carrying drugs in their pockets. When I reflect on the pictures of all the young people in the church in Ballyfermot the other night - brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews - they were remembering relatives whose lives were torn apart because somewhere along the way somebody handed them a pill from his or her pocket. We have to look into this. No decision has been made on decriminalisation but we need to examine this in great depth in conjunction with the Department of Justice and Equality. If we decriminalise addicts, we need to consider how that will affect other people. It is being looked at and I would not like Members to think otherwise.

Senator Devine mentioned children being used as mules and gophers. I had a call from a woman three weeks ago who told me the day her child made her communion, she was asked to bring a package of drugs across the road. That was the day the child was standing in her communion dress outside a church. That is a reflection on the lengths these people will go to. They do not care who they use or how young or old they are.

A number of Members raised the issue of what happens until the legislation is enacted. We will stay with the regulations until this is enacted and, therefore, there will not be a gap. I am delighted to thank all of those who contributed on this debate. I wish to conclude Second Stage with a few remarks on the importance of the Bill and to assure Senators of my commitment and that of the Government to addressing the problems associated with drug use. Let us remember what the misuse of drugs legislation is about, namely, preventing the misuse of dangerous substances. The Bill aims to minimise those risks by regulating the possession, supply, manufacture, import and export of these substances. No one would argue with these aims. Every drug user is a human being with a family, neighbours and a community. Drug users are schoolchildren, students, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles. They may be in paid employment, unemployed, living at home, homeless or rich, although the majority are poor. Some misuse drugs that have a legitimate use and others use drugs that have no legitimate use. Some drug users are what we might term recreational drug users whereas others have become trapped in their drug habits. This is an important point. It is as if they are in a tumble dryer with no way out of their addiction unless proper services are on the ground to help them. What they have in common is a drug use that impacts to some degree or other on their lives and that may negatively affect their relationships with their families, friends and neighbours and the wider community and society.

The proposed amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act, and the regulations to be made subsequently, will introduce controls on substances that are open to abuse and are being openly and unlawfully traded. The aim of the Bill is to assist the law enforcement authorities in dealing with the scourge of the unlawful availability of substances that are harmful to health. As the Minister stated, policy will be led by concerns about people's health, not criminalising them. No one could argue with these points.

Undoubtedly, problem drug use continues to be one of the most significant challenges facing our country. I am aware of the trust placed in me by the Government to lead in addressing these challenges, but it is not all down to me. It is for all Members in this Chamber, as human beings living in our communities, to ensure that young children are protected against people who have no sense of age or difference when leading others down the road to drug addiction. It is a challenge for everyone. Directly or indirectly, every community is affected by drug abuse and addiction. All communities deserve our protection through the control of the unlawful supply of dangerous substances and through access to treatment and other services when needed. I have spoken with some Members of the Oireachtas about access to services. Services on the ground in my community do their best to do a good job, although many could do much better. There are too many services. We must consider what services are being supplied to addicts and their families and ensure that quality rather than quantity is our approach. We must have quality services in communities instead of services being splintered everywhere. Addicts and families in trouble should not be running to ten different services. This matter will form part of the national drugs strategy, into which we will all have an input.

I would like to address some of the Senators from areas outside Dublin. As the House knows, I am from Dublin and many Senators come from across the country, but this issue affects people everywhere, not just those living in Dublin. It affects people living in Cork, Mayo, Donegal and Letterkenny. I am getting calls and e-mails from people in every little town and village claiming that they do not have services and asking what they should do when they find their children starting to take recreational drugs. We need to expand a service into communities and draw people together regardless of how small or large those communities are. This is in line with the programme for Government's commitment to a health-led rather than a criminal justice approach to drugs use.

The emphasis on health-led policy is not new. The National Drugs Strategy 2009-2016 aims to tackle the harm caused to individuals and society by the misuse of drugs through a concerted focus on the five pillars of supply reduction, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and research. The strategy aims to encourage problem substance users to engage with and avail of such services. Treatment is provided through a network of statutory and non-statutory agencies using a four-tier model of service delivery. This model is based on the principle that drug treatment is best provided at the level of complexity matching the patient's need and as close to the patient's home as possible. It is all about tackling the problem within the community. Under the strategy, the HSE has reoriented addiction services so that they are capable of dealing with all substances. This recognises that polydrug use is endemic among people attending drug treatment and makes treatment even more complex.

The provision of harm reduction measures such as needle and syringe programmes and methadone maintenance treatment reduces drug-related harm and facilitates recovery by providing a pathway into services. Our focus is to move people on to drug-free lives where that is achievable. I have listened to statistics down the years about the number of people who are on methadone. People in my life, in my community, talk on a daily basis about how they will work on taking methadone. Some have been on it for eight or ten years. I do not accept this. It is wrong. They should have been moved on a long time ago. That approach must form part of our considerations on the drugs strategy. Addiction is not a choice - it is a health care issue. This is why I believe that it is imperative that we approach our drug problem in a more compassionate and sensitive way.

I have attended the funerals of young people whom I knew closely and who died due to addiction. Some came from good families where there were no problems but who, for some reason or another, found themselves getting sucked into the tragic belief that if they only took a small amount of drugs, they would not become addicts and move on to heroin and other lethal substances. I am sure that Senators can reflect on the many funerals that they have attended because of suicides or drug addiction. Most striking is how the families have become lost in anger at themselves over not being able to do anything about what happened. After I speak with them, I often leave believing that, besides the child who has passed away, we must help the families. They are lost in a black hole when their loved ones are taken away and they do not have the answers. Many people who commit suicide do not even leave notes explaining why they did it, so their families do not know why it happened. The funerals are for young people, some as young as 12 or 13 years of age, whose lives were only beginning. As a public representative and citizen of this country, I have an obligation to do my best to help such young people.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to legislating for supervised drug injecting facilities, and it is my intention to publish a Bill in the autumn to deal with this issue.This move is in line with the findings in a recent report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which found that supervised drug consumption facilities can be an effective intervention in harm reduction and a means to encourage drug users to enter treatment. This is what we all want. Many Senators will be familiar with the Merchants Quay Ireland facility, which is in my constituency. I might as well be honest - it is the best facility of its type in Ireland. It deals on a daily basis with people with whom others in society are not prepared to deal. Those who go to Merchants Quay Ireland are not just looking to avail of its needle exchange service; they also want to be able to go into a programme. Many of those who use the Merchants Quay Ireland facility are brought into a programme and are helped. That is what safe injection facilities should be about as well. I have to inform Senator Ó Ríordáin that I have not visited one of these facilities. I have been asked to visit them, but my big problem is that I would have to go away to do so and I am afraid of my life of flying. I intend to visit one of them because I believe they work. That point has been made clearly by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. We need to look at that. I guarantee the House that I will do my utmost. The facilities in question have been shown to be effective in engaging populations of drug users who are difficult to reach. This is especially the case for marginalised groups, such as the homeless and those who use drugs on the streets or in other risky and unhygienic conditions. I am nearly finished. I apologise for moving away from the Bill.