Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and the Bill. I also thank the two Senators who tabled the amendments for setting out their stall, or their case. The bottom line is that drugs are the scourge of all communities. They know no bounds. I accept that while there are major problems with drugs in certain deprived areas, there are also drugs in very affluent areas. Cocaine is to be found on the high streets of Dublin, in the suburbs of Dublin and in the well-to-do places all over Ireland. There are all forms of drug addiction but I am of the view that it is a health issue and not a criminal one and we must support the people who are the victims of the drug barons and those who have peddled these drugs in our society for years.

I live in Dún Laoghaire where the settled community has constantly resisted the drugs and rehabilitation centre on Patrick Street. Communities say that people are coming from way beyond the community. Drug rehabilitation and treatment has to be in each of our communities and each community has to take responsibility.The sad reality in many cases is that local representatives in councils, Deputies, Senators and politicians of all hue have been an obstacle to allowing the rehabilitation of people in their communities. People respond to those who complain and speak the loudest. Politicians respond to people who engage in the voting process. Many people who are marginalised by drugs do not necessarily play a full and active role in their communities for various reasons; that is not to condemn them, but to acknowledge the fact.

I am more interested in hearing about rehabilitation. I am more interested in having small micro-services in every community on the island of Ireland. For far too long, politicians have said one thing but do not follow up with the necessary supports. In my own community, two drug addicts live very close to me. I remember when they were children. They were someone's two sons. Their parents set out with high ideals and ambitions for them. They sent them to school. One did well in sport and one got an amazing leaving certificate. Where are they now? They are walking around our town and my community alienated, forgotten, condemned and considered hopeless. What hope have they got? Is it enough to put them into some detention centre and condemn them, or can they get support? Another mother called to my home two weeks ago to say her daughter's daughter had been in a hospital in the west for six months after being born. This is another victim, someone who was detox-born. These are decent, ordinary people who have aspirations. Until we bring it home and talk about our brother or our sister, our mother or our father, our child, then it becomes a different story. We have got to make it more human. These people are victims and they need support.

While I accept that what the former Minister for Health, Senator James Reilly, has said is true, many drug users do push drugs to fund their habit. They are drug pushers and we cannot apologise for that. That is the dilemma with this problem. How can we say that a person can be permitted to have a certain amount of drugs when in effect many of these drug pushers have no control over anything they do because they have fallen so low? These are the dilemmas and the problems, and we all know them. If we are truly honest, we must know people involved at some level, be it sniffing cocaine, doing drugs, tabs or whatever it is. It is a human tragedy that is the scourge of our communities. I want to hear the Minister of State's response to these two amendments. I am interested in hearing what she is going to do and how she is going to empower our communities, our families and our friends in the form of rehabilitation so that these people can have meaningful lives for themselves but also play a meaningful role for their families, their children and their communities.