Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support this motion and compliment previous speakers, in particular Senator Ruane. Senators Ruane and Nash speak about their experience from predominantly urban areas. I am speaking from a rural perspective. Without being flippant or smart, when I speak of rural I am referring to very remote areas. If somebody passes my house, he or she either lives further up the road or is lost.

We did not have this drug use issue but we have it now. This became a problem in the cities and urban areas some 40 years ago. It is now coming to the most rural areas. We are still talking about potential solutions to tackle the problem. Why have we not learned from the past? Why are the institutions, methods, resources and personnel which have got to grips with this problem and learned by its evolution in urban areas not in place for us now in rural areas? Instead, we are still asking what can be done and how can we handle it. That aggrieves me. I live in a remote area. Even if we had all the resources requested, they would be given to rural towns such as Tullamore, Mullingar and Athlone. In remote rural areas we are struggling with GP access. How are we going to get a solution to what is becoming an endemic problem? I am 54 years of age and have never come across drug use until recently.

When education is thrown out as a solution to a problem, I always question it as it cannot be the answer for everything. We need to deal with education of communities. One of the most significant issues in my community is not ignorance but denial. The pillars of our communities, such as the GAA and other social clubs, become the extended arms of families in times of need and crisis. They are ignorant to an extent but they are also in denial about drug use. Education on the dangers of drug use needs to be directed at the adults in communities to a greater extent. I do not know why this did not start when this issue became a problem in our urban areas. It is vitally important that we educate our communities about this issue.

I must highlight a certain solution in an area not too far from my community which ignited a drug issue. It was a solution to one problem but has turned out to have created many more problems. It involved the acquisition of houses by a housing body and the rehousing of people in an area total alien to them with the promise of all the services they would need to integrate in society.Unfortunately, the services were only promises and drug and crime issues have escalated in that area. It grieves me to have to say that the locals were integrated more than the people who were brought into the locality. Everybody deserves to be housed and everybody is welcome everywhere. They were not foreign people, they were Irish people who were rehoused. They were not from places far away from the area to which they went but the services that were promised when they arrived were not provided and this has had a knock-on effect.

I support the motion and compliment my colleagues who put it together. This is not a political issue. Everybody here agrees about the severity of the crisis and the need for solutions. We must have learned something from where we have been. It is disappointing that we might have learned nothing from the past and, like many other crises, we are playing catch up and firefighting.