Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion.

Across this country, lives are being devastated by drug use, drug addiction, drug dealing and drug-related deaths. This Government has not invested the correct amount of funding to fight the war on drugs and the result has been a staggering rise in the consumption of drugs, addiction, social breakdown, drug-related deaths and tragedies. The situation is so bad that we saw only last month all nine former Ministers who held responsibility for the national drugs strategy come together to call on the Taoiseach to act now to reinvigorate drugs policy because the problem has reached epidemic proportions. Having steered the national drugs strategy over a 20-year period between 1996 and 2016, the former Ministers expressed concern and frustration at the failure of this Fine Gael Government to honour its commitment work in partnership with community groups.

Despite constant drug seizures by very capable Garda drug units throughout the country, we seem to be in a state of denial about what is happening when it comes to drugs. The position has changed dramatically in the 22 years since the State acknowledged that Ireland's drug problem was primarily an opiate problem, mainly caused by heroin, and principally a Dublin phenomenon. That is by no means an accurate reflection of the current position.

In June last, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, EMCDDA, published the European Drug Report 2019: Trends and Developments. The statistics were stark. It found that drug use among young people in Ireland is growing, with use of ecstasy among 15 to 24 year olds quadrupling between 2011 and 2015. Drug-related deaths have shown an upward trend since 2009, with 224 such deaths recorded in 2016. This data is from 2017, the most recent year for which data are available, and was compiled by the EMCDDA from a variety of sources.

According to the most recent global drug survey, more than half those surveyed who are using cocaine want to stop but need help to do so. However, help is not available, which is a serious problem. Despite this, the Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy stated last month that there had been an increase in the allocation for the development of a strategic health initiative by the HSE drug and alcohol task forces. Throughout the country, service providers dealing with people who are suffering as a result of drug use or addiction are facing closure because of a lack of funding and increased demand. I know of one rehabilitation service in Carlow which needs funding to help the young people with whom it works to rebuild their lives which have been significantly influenced by drugs. The service is in such difficulty that it is threatened with closure, which would leave a number of service users without the vital help they need.

The funding being allocated to local and regional drug and alcohol task forces in communities falls far too short. Investment in drug task forces has stagnated in recent years, having increased by 1.7% since 2015 compared with a 28% increase in health expenditure overall. The 2019 HSE service plan was very disappointing as regards the provision of new funding to tackle Ireland's drug challenges. The plan was devoid of references to drug and alcohol task forces or the funding to be provided to them. The task forces also receive direct funding from the Department of Health.

It is also evident that the HSE is finding it difficult to meet some of its targets. For example, the 2018 service plan set a target of three days for the average waiting time from referral to assessment for opioid substitution treatment. The outturn was five days. The 2019 target is four days.

We are now well into the third year of a new national drug strategy and if commitment to implementation is to be judged by the funding of services provided, this plan gives great cause for concern. There has been a significant increase in the use of crack cocaine and in the number of drug users in the young population. The latest drug treatment figures from the Health Research Board show a 50% increase in the number of people presenting for cocaine treatment between 2017 and 2018, while opiates remain the most common drug reported among those treated for drugs use.

Cannabis is the second most common drug for which people receive treatment. It is very often perceived as largely non-harmful and it is an extremely popular recreational drug, second only to cocaine. The use of drugs is on the increase and people need to be educated about the links between drug use and the long-term mental health issues. If we had greater investment in the local drug and alcohol task forces, we would achieve change. The task forces are experiencing great difficulty recruiting youth outreach workers as there is no budget to do so. We need more support in local communities that are being ravaged by drugs.

Time and again, at joint policing committee meetings all over the country, the drugs trade is cited as one of the most challenging problems in society. According to those who are dealing with this blight on society, there are more drugs available now than there were in 2018. Some 55 new psychoactive substances were detected in Europe for the first time last year, bringing the total number of such substances monitored by the EMCDDA to 730. It has become easier to find and buy drugs online, in the local pub or club and in schools and colleges. We have a massive problem and society is losing the battle.

Local and regional drug and alcohol task forces play an essential role in communities across the country by providing a targeted response to emerging trends in drug and alcohol use. They cannot continue to do this good work, however, if they are overstretched and underfunded. Their work very often extends beyond dealing with addiction to dealing with anti-social behaviour, public drug use and drug litter. The task forces are under enormous pressure. The bottom line is that if their progress and work is to continue making a meaningful difference to people's lives and in communities, they must be consistently supported financially. Funding is the big issue in this regard.

The Fianna Fáil Party spokesperson for national drug policy, Deputy John Curran, has prepared draft legislation to tackle the use of children in the distribution side of the drugs trade. The new Bill would see the introduction of two new criminal offences. It would become a criminal offence to purchase drugs from a person under the age of 18 or to cause a child to be in possession of drugs for the intent of sale and supply. The use of minors in drug distribution networks is appealing because, owing to their age, there are fewer criminal consequences if minors are caught. This Bill seeks to change that and, in doing so, it would make it less attractive for those higher up in the distribution chain to use young people in this manner. We hope that the combined effect of these two new offences will be to protect young people against getting involved in the drug economy.

The number of gardaí committed to drug units across the country has reduced significantly since the beginning of the decade despite a spike in drug crime. While there has been a modest increase in the number this year, the overall trend since the beginning of the decade continues to be that the strength of Garda drug units is declining. As of September, drug units across the country had 232 Garda members, including inspectors and sergeants. The increase by ten in this number over the previous year was only the second such increase since 2011. The other increase was in 2015 when just four gardaí were added to the specialist units. In 2011, drug units nationwide comprised 359 gardaí. This figure had decreased to 253 by 2014 and to 222 in 2018. During this period, the number of gardaí in the drugs unit in Dublin decreased from 147 to just 80, Limerick lost half of the 20 gardaí in its drugs unit, while the number of gardaí in the Cork city drugs unit decreased from 38 to 23. In the Carlow-Kilkenny region, my local area, we lost 75% of our drugs unit, with numbers falling from eight members to two. The strength of the Wicklow drug unit decreased from 11 in 2011 to four this year. Donegal, Laois and Louth saw numbers in their drugs units halved, while Clare lost two thirds of the number of gardaí in its unit. Most other counties saw minor decreases, while numbers in Kerry, Kildare and Waterford have increased since 2011 and numbers in Mayo, Meath and Tipperary stayed the same. These figures are very worrying. The decrease of more than 35% between 2011 and 2019 comes as the number of controlled drug offences increased by 13% in the same period nationally, from 17,571 in 2011 to 20,153 between June 2018 and June 2019. Calls are made for more resources at all meetings of the joint policing committees. Extra resources are badly needed in these divisions, not reductions.

Fianna Fáil believes in examining the feasibility of decriminalisation as a means of help us to turn a corner in efforts to reduce drugs use. The leading Irish drug project, Ana Liffey, recently launched its campaign, #SaferFromHarm, in collaboration with the London School of Economics, to emphasise that health not criminal justice should be at the core of the State's response to the possession of drugs for personal use. Drugs were once considered to be an issue only for city areas with lower socio-economic status, including areas of Dublin where there was an issue. The problem has spread across the country and is huge.In an ideal world, no legislative response would be necessary. We do not live in that kind of world, however. We live in the real world and the crisis of public drug use, associated gangland criminality and open drug dealing requires us to explore possible solutions to a broadening public health crisis we can no longer ignore. We are conscious that there are many ethical considerations, but drugs are impacting every town, every village and every household nationwide. We either ask ourselves difficult questions or we continue to leave vulnerable people suffering in addiction and being exploited by merciless drug dealers. The traditional methods of prohibition are not working and we need to listen to the experts in this area to inform ourselves of the challenges ahead. That is crucial.

In our submission for the 2017 drugs strategy, we stated that there should be an exploration of the introduction of a delayed criminalisation model where those committing drug offences currently defined as being for personal usage are directed towards proper treatment and intervention. It is important that this model would be properly codified, constructed and formalised to ensure that people with a drug addiction are given the opportunity to overcome that addiction. We also feel there is an urgent need to review the methadone treatment protocol, as the last review was conducted almost ten years ago. While methadone has a significant role to play in harm reduction, our concern is that more than 10,000 people are now on a methadone treatment programme and it is being used as a long-term solution without any integrated care plan for each patient. More than 6,000 people have been on methadone for five years or more, while more than 4,000 people have been on it for over ten years. That is a long time to be on an opioid substitution treatment.

There appears to be a lack of patient-centred care plans for those receiving methadone. It is particularly concerning that since 2016 some 70 to 80 teenagers have been on a treatment programme. There must be better outcomes and pathways to recovery. I believe that all of us working together can achieve better outcomes and fight the war on drugs with better tools, funding, resources, policy and education. We need a national education awareness campaign and we need to give the tools to just say no to our young people if we are going to tackle this scourge in our society.