Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

The national drugs strategy is coming to an end, so one would imagine that preparation should be ongoing to review the current strategy in order to learn from it and inform the next strategy or where we go from here, but stakeholders have expressed concern that there has been a lack of consultation on the ground. There are many organisations that work in our communities. They know what is going on. They work with people with addiction problems and with those people's families, yet these organisations are not being properly supported or engaged with. The biggest issue is the lack of funding. Many of them are section 38 or section 39 organisations. They are not provided with multi-annual funding. They also have a huge issue with retaining staff. Staff are not paid sufficiently for their vital work.

The outlook of the drugs strategy is the correct one. It is a health-led approach. When someone with a drug or alcohol addiction seeks help, he or she needs to access that help there and then, not be told that there is a waiting list of three or six months for services, which is what is happening in my home area. There is are huge waiting lists for any sort of help. I taught in a secondary school for many years and I would not like to sit down and write down all the names of my former pupils who are now deceased as a result of drugs. There are too many of them. Those young lives were cut short because they did not get the help that they required. Some of them died due to accidental overdose, some due to suicide because of the mental health issues related to drug abuse, and some because of drug intimidation and debt intimidation, unfortunately. It leaves behind devastation in families and communities. We hear all the time the statement that drugs are everywhere and commonplace, and that is frightening. As the mother of two sons in their teenage years, I am frightened for them. All I can do is talk to them and hope that I can get to through to them about staying away from drugs. However, drugs affect everybody. Drugs affect every community and people from all socioeconomic backgrounds.Those who come from a background where there is poverty, deprivation - it might be intergenerational poverty and deprivation - or intergenerational addiction find it more difficult to get the help to get out of that situation. As well as the health-led approach for those who have addiction issues, we need to see investment in communities that have suffered deprivation and intergenerational poverty. That will make all the difference.

I often hear there is no place for young people to hang-out. I see it myself; there is no place for them in many of our communities. They end up taking the wrong choices or going to the pub because that is the only option available to them to socialise and mix. That is the wrong message to be sending to our young people. We should have facilities for our young people. We need to invest in our communities.

Our prisons are overcrowded. The Minister of State was on the disability committee. We heard from the Prison Service about how may people were in prison due to mental health issues. They should not be in there. That is not the place for them. It is the same with people with addiction problems. That is not where they can get the proper help. They need help. We need to see the decriminalisation of people for possession of drugs. They need to be given the opportunity to engage with health-led services. I hope that will steer them away from drugs, drink and addiction problems and into a different lifestyle.

We need to see an increase in funding for our local and regional drug and alcohol task forces. It was cut drastically at the time of the recession. They are the services that should never be cut. We need to support people in our communities on an ongoing basis and not just leave them to the wolves. We need to see proper funding support for recovery services, such as publicly owned, community-operated rehabilitation and detoxification inpatient facilities. We also need to see supports for dual diagnoses of mental health and addiction because they go hand-in-hand.

I acknowledge the great support our resource centres are giving to families in our communities. Many of them end up trying to provide services to people with drug and alcohol issues. They are not being funded properly. We need to see proper funding put into our resource centres and all of our community-based centres to support people in our communities.