Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to comment on the Fianna Fáil legislation relating to drugs and some of the conversation that frames it. I am not completely in favour of that legislation. That is not because I am not in favour of protecting children. Sometimes the conversations around the grooming of children in communities regarding drug dealing is extremely short-sighted and misunderstood. We would be better served reinstating resources, the community development sector and the family resource centres in communities. I am not sure why we would introduce this legislation. I am not saying the grooming of children in terms of drugs does not happen in a minuscule number of cases but in the majority of cases that is not what is happening. I was a 12 year old drug dealer and I definitely was not groomed. It was born from poverty and lack of opportunity.

We need to have a real conversation about how we can prevent drug dealing as an option for young men and women in the community and not only a conversation about how we can find ways to prosecute people who end up in that position. I have fears about the relationship that currently exists especially between young men and gardaí in areas that are extremely disadvantaged. We have a history in Ireland where gardaí have withheld methadone from people who are on heroin so that they could extract information from them. Where is the conversation about what happens to young 12, 13 and 14 year olds when they are caught in possession of substances in terms of the relationship with the Garda? It is also more dangerous sometimes for a person to say where the drugs came from in order for the Garda to secure a prosecution if there is to be a legal offence.

We need to have a wider conversation about poverty and investment in communities. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a myth that drug dealers were standing outside schools in our communities roaring us out, offering us free heroin so that we would be hooked. It was exactly that, an absolute myth. There were no drug dealers outside our schools or youth clubs asking us did we want to use drugs. Usually, we sought them out ourselves at that young age or we were just surrounded by them. Although we need legislation to most definitely protect children who are being exploited, it is premature to introduce that without understanding the root causes of why drug dealing exists predominantly in communities that have been completely starved of resources for a long time. I ask that when we resume in the new year we would discuss how we can resource communities to prevent this and how we can give young people other options that do not seem as lucrative or as easy as the sale of drugs, but it is not easy in the end.