Deputy Mitchell wishes to share her remaining 12 minutes with Deputy Naughten.
Report of European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction: Statements (Resumed).
Earlier I spoke of two measures which could be taken immediately to deal with one aspect of the drug problem. The kindergarten for the drinking and drug taking experience of young people in the Dublin area is the open spaces of our parks, laneways and derelict sites. The Minister of State, Deputy Flood, is also aware of this Dublin phenomenon. It is a widespread problem and becoming a major social problem for other people besides the youngsters involved. It appears to be largely ignored. The Garda Síochána take a benign approach and appear to believe it is not damaging to society. In the context of other serious crime this approach might be understandable. However, if this is where the drugs problem begins, it is where we must begin to tackle it.
There is a great deal of legislation under which this problem can be tackled. There is a law against drinking in public and in public open spaces. There are also bylaws to the same effect. The public order legislation is also applicable. A little zero tolerance in this area would go a long way towards solving the problem in its early stages.
When youngsters as young as 14 or 15 years of age graduate from the open spaces kindergarten they move to pubs and clubs where drugs are freely available. They have no trouble gaining admission to these establishments because they use fake ID cards. If one stopped every teenager in the streets, every second one would have a fake ID card and possibly two or three to suit every occasion. There is a thriving business in fake ID cards among young people and one must admire their ingenuity at making perfect reproductions of USIT cards and so forth. As a result, however, young people have access to off-licences, public houses and clubs and have the opportunity to not only drink but also to take drugs in these locations.
These two aspects of the problem must be tackled. I accept that demand reduction requires more than the enforcement of penal measures and that it is a multi-dimensional problem. However, tackling the two areas I mentioned would yield huge dividends in the immediate term. There are many civil liberties arguments against the introduction of ID cards but society and its problems have become too complex to just continue talking about them. We must grasp the nettle. The introduction of ID cards would at least deal with the under age problem outlined in the report and give the majority of youngsters a chance to reach 18 years of age with their brains still sufficiently intact to make the life decisions which confront them at that age.
I welcome the report of the European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drug addiction. Establishing that body was one of the EU's most positive moves. It is a pity that I and many other Members were unable to get a copy of the report. There is one copy in the Library and we are relying on photocopies of it. Even the Clerk does not have a copy. That is most disappointing as it is an important issue.
A number of reports have been published recently about the growing problem of drug abuse in this country. Irish society is rapidly changing and one of the side effects of a booming economy is an increase in abuse of legal and illegal drugs. Drug abuse is a problem in all age groups, with older age groups tending to abuse legal drugs and younger age groups abusing trendy, illegal drugs, especially new synthetic drugs. In Ireland, 42 per cent of the population is under 25 years of age and tackling substance abuse among young people must be a priority.
Irish young people are near the top of the European league in their use of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy. Irish school children are more familiar than their European peers with cigarettes, alcohol and illegal drugs. Sadly, it is only in recent years that tackling this problem has become a priority in this country. In the past ten years the problem has snowballed and in the past two weeks alone the Garda Síochána made seven significant seizures, some of which had a street value of more than £8 million. Illegal drugs are now freely available in every village. A comprehensive, co-ordinated strategy is necessary to tackle this rapidly growing cancer. Yesterday, the Minister explained how much the Eastern Health Board is doing to tackle the problem. The board deserves our congratulations. However, the same resources are not being allocated to other health boards. Two years ago my brother, who was then 12 years of age, was approached by somebody with drugs in a disco. This occurred in a rural community in the west.
While the Garda Síochána must be complimented on its excellent work in this area, one must ask how many more drugs are getting through the net if so many seizures can be made. Such large seizures underline the fact that many people are prepared to risk lengthy jail sentences for the potential profits involved in supplying the market. While we must continue to reduce the supply of drugs, headlines such as "Irish Teens Top Cannabis Users List" and "Survey Shows Irish Students Take More Drugs Than Average" will not be changed unless the demand is tackled. A new approach must be taken to curb demand rather than just the supply of legal and illegal drugs.
Why do young people take drugs? There are more pressures in their daily lives. The points systems has become extremely stressful as is the lack of a permanent job and a stable income. The quality of life has changed dramatically in the past 15 years. Ireland has become a rat race and drugs give young people a means to get away from it.
There is a severe lack of education and information on drugs. When I went to school we heard nothing about drugs although they were freely available outside the school. We now have the youngest drug taking population in Europe. I am the same age as an average drug addict so I am part of this country's drugs generation. Why? We did not have the relevant information when we were growing up. The information is now available in second level schools but it is still not available in primary schools even though people are starting to take drugs at a younger age. The information should be available in primary schools and it should have been available in second level schools when I was at school. The State let me and my generation down. That must not happen again. Anti-drugs policies must give greater priority to reducing demand and additional resources must be invested in this area.
The report states that prevention is thought to be most effective when organised locally. The priority must be to provide proper education and information in primary and second level schools. This is the most effective means of reducing demand. The report refers to a county in Denmark which carried out a poster campaign and invited ex-users into the schools. It also conducted a mail shot campaign in the local communities. That is the way we must tackle the problem.
The general public must also be made aware of the risks. More information must be made available on the risks and side effects of drugs, especially new synthetic drugs. A hotline such as the one in Britain, which gives anonymous advice to callers about the risks associated with drugs and what precautions drug takers should take, should be established. If somebody takes ecstasy, for example, he or she is advised to drink plenty of water. The Eastern Health Board has such a hotline but it should be implemented on a national basis.
Research into the demand for and availability of drugs is also required. Throughout the report there are gaps in the information about Ireland because the relevant information and statistics are not available. Resources must be put into research to find out why young people take drugs. The amphetamine craze is one of the major problems. It is the second most frequently used illegal drug in the European Union and is linked to discos and rave parties. These young people are not coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are relatively affluent and well educated young people who are students or employed. This raises more serious questions.
We need to crack down on the whole area of illegal drugs, especially the underage buying of cigarettes and alcohol. Cigarettes are freely available to young people of any age. One has only to walk down the street during the day to see young people with cigarettes. Alcopops are becoming a big craze, especially among underage drinkers, and should be banned. In Britain one can even get alcoholic milk and alcoholic mineral water. An ID card system will have to be put in place. If it is not possible to ban them the least we should have is a code of practice to ensure young people are not targeted.
The growing rave culture will cause serious side effects in ten to 20 years' time because these are mind-altering drugs. From the research done on animals it is clear that in ten years' time our psychiatric hospitals will be full. This problem will have to be tackled. We need to ensure the water is not turned off in the nightclubs where these drugs are distributed. There is a need for registration and proper training for security staff which the Garda should monitor. I urge the Minister to implement some of these suggestions.
I welcome this debate for two reasons. It gives the House an opportunity to discuss the important report produced by the European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drug addiction and in the process to review and debate our policy for tackling drug abuse. There appears to be general agreement on all sides on the broad thrust of the strategy being adopted, which is consistent with the two excellent reports produced by the ministerial task force on measures to reduce the demand for drugs, as endorsed and further developed in the Fianna Fáil policy document, A Radical Approach to Drugs and Drug Related Crime.
My second reason for welcoming this debate is more personal. It affords me my first opportunity, apart from responding to parliamentary questions, to set out the broad thrust of the Government's drugs strategy and to comment briefly on the thinking behind that strategy. I am pleased to have been assigned overall responsibility for the effective implementation and co-ordination of the Government's strategy for drugs demand reduction. I pay tribute to my constituency colleague, Deputy Rabbitte, whose contribution I listened to. He was the first chairman of the ministerial task force on drug misuse and made a significant contribution to putting in place structures which I had the good fortune to inherit when appointed to this portfolio. I pay tribute to Deputy Rabbitte for his commitment in that regard.
The European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drugs addiction was established in Lisbon in 1994 to provide objective, reliable and comparable information at European level on drug addiction and its consequences. The centre gathers and disseminates information on a range of drug-related issues including the demand for drugs and measures to reduce that demand; national and European Community strategies and policies; international co-operation and geopolitics of the supply of drugs; the control of trade in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursor chemicals; and the implications of the drugs phenomenon for producer, consumer and transit countries.
The ultimate objective of the European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drug addiction is to provide policy-makers and others with an information base from which they can compare the effectiveness of policies and practices. For this reason, its reports are important and deserve detailed examination and consideration, not only in Ireland but in all EU countries. While the centre does not make policy recommendations in its reports, it contributes greatly towards and may well lead to the development of a common policy among our EU partners in addressing the drugs phenomenon.
In opening this debate, my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Brian Cowen, has outlined in some detail the report and its key findings, particularly as they relate to the treatment and rehabilitation of drug misusers. I propose to concentrate on the aspects of the report which deal with drugs demand reduction and the delivery of locally-based responses to the problem. Two key points to emerge in the report were that many EU countries have new or revised anti-drug policies which give greater priority and increased funding for demand reduction and that prevention is thought most effective when organised locally and close to its targets. The report states that the overwhelming majority of demand reduction work in the EU is locally based, focused on units such as the neighbourhood, the family, schools or local associations. The increased emphasis on demand reduction and the development of locally-based strategies underpin the approach adopted by both the current and previous Governments in tackling the drugs problem.
While the EU report recognises the increasing use of "new" drugs, such as ecstasy, it concludes that in most EU member states heroin dominates the indicators which reflect various problematic consequences of drug use, such as the demand for treatment, drug-related deaths and HIV infection. The report states that in most countries, opiates — mainly heroin — are reported most often as the primary substances used by problem drug users and that capital cities tend to have problem use rates higher than those of the provincial cities and the national average. This is consistent with the findings in the reports of the ministerial task force established by the previous Government which was chaired by my constituency colleague, Deputy Pat Rabbitte.
That committee concluded that the problem of heroin abuse was by far the most pressing aspect of the drugs problem confronting us and that it was a phenomenon confined almost exclusively to Dublin. That is not to say that this situation could not alter quickly. Past evidence confirms that the nature and extent of the drugs problem can change rapidly and move from area to area. One of the fears raised by the crackdown on supply in the worst affected areas during the past year or so is that it may transfer the problem to other areas, as the drug barons go to any length to maintain their lucrative but deadly business.
In Dublin, the heroin problem is concentrated in the most socially and economically deprived parts of the city. It is no surprise that this phenomenon is repeated Europe wide. Most of us are familiar to some extent with the situation in the inner cities in the US and in European cities such as Glasgow, Paris and Amsterdam. While the factors at work in all of these cities may not be the same there is one major theme, the strong correlation between drug abuse and social, economic and physical marginalisation of working class communities. The greatest numbers presenting for treatment for heroin addiction in Dublin are from areas which have been designated, by objective criteria under the local development programme, as being socially and economically disadvantaged. These areas are characterised by chronic levels of unemployment, poor living conditions, high rates of early school leaving, high levels of family breakdown and a general lack of recreational amenities and other supports.
The net result is that problems of unemployment, poverty and educational disadvantage have been transmitted from one generation to the next. Many initiatives have been taken in recent years to break this cycle. It is my intention to continue with this strategy and to work to ensure that the efforts of all players in this area are continuously focused on rebuilding the social and economic capacity of our most deprived areas. The link between drug abuse and social exclusion was a key factor in the Government's decision to reconstitute the Cabinet drugs committee, set up by the previous Government, into a wider committee on social inclusion and drugs. This committee, which will continue to do the work of the previous committee in pulling together and giving overall political direction to the Government's drugs strategy, will also oversee the implementation of the local development programme and the national anti-poverty strategy. The committee will continue to be chaired by the Taoiseach, reflecting the importance which the Government attaches to this issue, but its membership has been extended to include all relevant Ministers. The Government has assigned special responsibility to me to oversee implementation of its drugs reduction strategy as well as responsibility in relation to the local development programme. I will report to the committee on both issues.
There are a significant number of areas which have suffered tremendously from the effects of neglect and deprivation in recent decades. Do we have the capacity and the commitment to tackle the underlying causes? This would make a significant difference in dealing with the issue we are discussing. In my role as chairperson of the national drugs strategy team and member of the committee on social exclusion and drugs, I have taken the opportunity to visit a number of areas to see for myself the effects of this neglect. In one instance I was appalled to find that out of 350 units of accommodation 50 were empty and had been vandalised. It is the objective of the Government and the committee of which I am a member to tackle this problem.
The most important element of the Government's drugs strategy during the past year or so has been the establishment of the local drugs task forces in Dublin and north Cork city. Prior to their establishment, it had been obvious for some time that considerable statutory, voluntary and community effort was being put into tackling the drugs problem. However this did not appear to be as co-ordinated and targeted as it might have been nor did it give sufficient recognition to the important role local communities can play in tackling the problem in their areas.
We are particularly fortunate in Ireland to have vibrant and active community participation in the social and economic life of the country. Community involvement has underpined the success of the local development programme and I am confident it will equally ensure success in our efforts to come to grips with the drugs problem. Local groups and individuals who often work in extremely difficult circumstances, particularly in the context of the drugs problem, have a valuable contribution to make to the development and implementation of local strategies to tackle the drugs demand. Many have been involved in tackling the drugs problem in their areas for many years during which time they have built up considerable and valuable experience which needs to be tapped as a resource.
The local drugs task forces were established to meet three specific needs: to ensure effective co-ordination between drugs programmes and services; to target the areas worst affected by the problem; and, most important, to give local communities a real and meaningful role in the development and implementation of strategies to tackle drug misuse in their areas.
In all, 13 task forces were established, 12 in Dublin and one in north Cork city, their areas of operation generally equating with those of the area partnerships established under the local development programme. I am glad to report that, while it was originally envisaged that the role of the area partnerships would be to nominate the chairpersons and community representatives to the task forces, they have, for the most part, continued to adopt a hands-on approach and are playing a valuable role in assisting and facilitating the task forces in their work.
The task forces form a tripartite partnership between the statutory, voluntary and community sectors. The statutory sector representatives come from the health boards, the Garda Síochána, the local authorities, FÁS, the Probation and Welfare Service and the Youth Service. The community representatives were nominated by the area partnerships and six were appointed to each task force. The voluntary representatives represent voluntary organisations operating in the task force areas.
The task forces were mandated to prepare profiles of the nature and extent of the drugs problem in their areas of operation; to compile inventories of the programmes and services available or planned in those areas to tackle the drugs problem; to identify gaps or duplication in these supports; to develop strategies to address these gaps and target services more effectively. As Deputies will be aware, £10 million was set aside to fund the implementation of strategic plans which the task forces were asked to develop. The task forces represent a bottom-up approach to tackle the drugs problem and their approach is not dissimilar to that being pursued by the area partnerships in tackling the problem of social exclusion with particular reference to long-term unemployment.
All 13 task forces have submitted their strategic plans which are being evaluated by the national drugs strategy team which hopes to be in a position shortly to make recommendations to Government regarding the allocation of funding to support their implementation. Apart from the specific task of evaluating the task force plans, the national drugs strategy team has overall responsibility for ensuring the effective implementation of the Government's drugs strategy. The national drugs strategy team — a cross-departmental team of the type envisaged in the strategic management initiative — comprises representatives of relevant Departments and statutory agencies with two persons who bring the perspective of the voluntary and community sectors to its work. On its advice, the Government has allocated interim funding of just under £5 million to fund the implementation of the more straight-forward elements of the task force plans. This funding is being allocated on the basis of the quality of the proposals in the plans balanced against the needs of the individual task force areas rather than on an even geographic distribution between the 13 task forces.
In commenting on their effectiveness to date, the process of establishing the task forces and asking them to prepare strategic plans has proved successful. It has engaged communities in areas where the drugs crisis is at its worst and given them hope where previously none existed. That is not to say there have not been teething problems. The task forces were under pressure to produce their plans speedily having regard to the need for communities in the priority areas to see developments taking place quickly. This made an already difficult task even more daunting. Everyone involved in the process is to be congratulated for the manner in which they have gone about their work and worked together towards the goal of developing their strategic plans.
The statutory and voluntary-community sides have learned from this experience. This will, in time, contribute towards their greater effectiveness. As Deputies will be aware, there is a commitment in Partnership 2000 to review the local drugs task force process at the end of the year. It is my hope, learning from the experiences of the past year, that we will be able to further develop and expand the role of the task forces and make them ready to meet the challenges of the next few years which the drugs problem will pose.
I wish to comment on other aspects of the report. In dealing with new trends in synthetic drugs, the report notes that in some EU member states unprecedented numbers of young Europeans have adopted the use of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines in the context of a mass youth culture. It states that, unlike heroin addicts, the users of these drugs are not concentrated among the marginalised or deprived but are mostly young, unemployed or students and relatively affluent. These findings are consistent with our own experiences here.
The second report of the ministerial task force which dealt with, among other issues, the nationwide misuse of non-opiate drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy drew attention to the link between youth culture and experimentation with drugs, legal and illicit. Concluding that the most effective long-term strategy to counter drug abuse is in the area of prevention, the report recommended the establishment of a youth services development fund to provide amenities and develop youth services in disadvantaged areas where there is a significant drugs problem. It is proposed to bring this fund into effect in 1998. Proposals are being developed, for submission to Government shortly, in relation to the administration of the fund.
By placing responsibility for co-ordinating the Government's drugs strategy within the same Department as that of local development and sport, we have clearly signalled our intention to place considerable emphasis on prevention as well as on cure. With my colleague, the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, I will seek to ensure sufficient resources are allocated to the task force areas to tackle the causes of the problem rather than simply treating its symptoms.
Another key point which emerged from the European Union report is that more drug users may come into contact with the criminal justice system than with the treatment services. The question of how best to address the needs of drug misusers who come into contact with the criminal justice system clearly is an important factor within the context of tackling the overall drugs problem. We are conscious that a very significant number of heroin users here will most likely find themselves before the courts at some stage. To complicate matters, this is not an issue that can be readily addressed by the strategies being developed by local drugs task forces, primarily because it is difficult to develop locally-based services for persons who tend to drift between the community and prison. While there may be some scope for community-based actions to tackle this aspect of the problem, what is clearly needed is an integrated, coherent central response. In this regard the Government proposes to proceed with the establishment of an independent expert group to undertake an assessment of the current supports available to offenders who misuse drugs and submit recommendations for their greater integration. Of course, the establishment of this group was recommended in the second report of the ministerial task force.
The European Union report confirms that the broad strategies we are adopting to tackle our drugs problem are consistent with the policies and best practice obtaining in other European Union countries. However, it is important that we show tangible progress in quickly meeting community needs and rebuilding a sense of hope within communities marked by high levels of unemployment and marginalisation. This approach has the broad support of all sides of the House. This bipartisan approach is extremely important if we are to come to grips eventually with this extremely complex social problem.
Mr. Hayes
With the permission of the House I should like to share my time with Deputy Gerry Reynolds.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
Mr. Hayes
First I congratulate the Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation on his contribution. I have already put on the record my support of the Government's intention to continue the work begun some years ago to tackle this problem. It is particularly relevant, from the point of view of Government, that the Minister of State, Deputy Flood, should lead this onslaught on drugs, as he is a Minister and public representative of a constituency ravaged by the problems of drug addiction, not merely in recent years but dating back some ten years or so. He is well placed to meet that challenge head on. He quite rightly and generously paid tribute to his constituency colleague, Deputy Rabbitte, now in Opposition, for the work he undertook in this area. It is important that as a Dublin Minister and Deputy — where this problem is more acute than in other regions of the country — he should lead this campaign in which I wish him well and assure him of the support of this side of the House.
This problem was allowed to fester in society for 15 years without a penny of Government resources being allocated to its resolution, or any real strategy to tackle it having been implemented. If there is one thing to be learned from this European Union report it is the need to devise and implement a locally-based, effective strategy. We will not deliver a reduction in addiction levels or any increase in information levels within our society through some tablet of stone emanating from Brussels or Merrion Street. The real subscribers to the resolution of this problem lie within the communities familiar to the Minister of State, Deputy Flood, and other Members. It is there the solution will be found.
We must engage in an awful lot of listening in this House. As a Member representing a Dublin constituency I am not sure that in recent years this House took fully into consideration the kinds of urban problems resulting from the misuse of drugs. We must listen carefully to people within the community worst affected by this problem and respond accordingly. That is why the central plank of this strategy must be the allocation of requisite resources to locally-based task forces allowing them to proceed with the requisite task. Of course, there needs to be a ministerial canopy placed over this allocation of funding but, ultimately, it will be the responsibility of the task force to pinpoint, region by region, parish by parish, street by street the precise extent of the problem.
The £10 million allocated to the locally-based task force will enable the fruition of the many projects already begun or about to be established in the immediate future to make a tremendous difference in urban areas. It is not just a matter of establishing methadone administration centres nationwide or of ensuring that a premises is built, it is also about dissemination of information. Within a total of some 17 or 18 programmes proposed for my constituency, many are targeted at the provision of services for parents who, to date, have not had any or sufficient information available to enable them tackle the problem. Up to now these programmes have tended to concentrate on the provision of training facilities for addicts and former addicts isolated from society resulting from the menace of drugs. These are the kinds of projects that must be at the centre of our strategy and the lesson to be learned from this EU report.
The issue of educational disadvantage is allied to this overall problem, particularly in the case of the use of heroin which, as the Minister correctly said, is ostensibly a problem in the inner city and new suburbs of Dublin. It is my firm belief that that problem is a consequence of educational disadvantage. When I was a Member of the Seanad I got the idea from Senator Lee that in many ways this issue simply cannot be resolved by any one Minister, but will require liaison between five and seven, involving health, education, employment and training perspectives to tackle it on a weekly basis. While recognising that the Minister has that sense of urgency I hope it prevails among his Cabinet colleagues with whom I hope he will hold regular weekly meetings as well as with Members of a committee of the House — which I hope will be established shortly — to keep them up-to-date with the drugs problem and their endeavours to resolve it. If dealt with in that manner, the multi-faceted response, whether by way of health, education or otherwise, will ultimately win out.
Another issue surrounding this problem of drugs is that, whenever we hear the word, we automatically assume it relates solely to young people, a very negative reaction. While young people today probably observe the use and misuse of drugs more frequently than was the case ten years ago, we should not automatically assume that the vast majority of them are shooting up, popping tablets or blowing their heads out every Friday evening after work. We regularly see sensational headlines which fuel the not very informed public debate on this issue. The vast majority of our young people do not abuse drugs and are aware of their dangers. That fact must be weighed against the problem experienced by so many other young people who come into contact with them.
There is need for a publicly-based upfront campaign against those elements of showbusiness and the media who argue that the legalisation of cannabis would yield a positive result and lead us to confront this problem within society. That approach has not worked anywhere else. One of the Minister's functions should be to launch a campaign against these people. Many of them do not live here but they lecture us from abroad about the Dutch example which has not worked.
Deputy Hayes and the Minister of State, Deputy Flood, represent a constituency which has a significant drugs problem. I represent Sligo-Leitrim, one of the more rural constituencies, but it would be naive to suggest it does not have a drugs problem. It exists but is not as bad as in the inner city and suburbs of Dublin. The only long-term solution to the problem is education.
I wish the Minister, Deputy Flood, the best in his position because it will be a difficult one. Progress will be slow but, as long as it is made, it is the right way to go. The interdepartmental strategy drawn up under the chairmanship of the former Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, is excellent and sets out the guidelines we should follow in solving the drugs problem. I am glad the Government has taken it on board and will propose it as its policy.
The introduction of a national identity card scheme may go a long way towards stemming the increase in drug use among young people. Every city, town and village suffers dramatically from underage drinking. Young people experience drink and its effects between the ages of 13 and 15 and the next step is drugs. Some elements in the media state that hash and other soft drugs are not harmful, that they can be smoked like cigarettes and that they give the user a buzz with little or no side effects. That is extremely dangerous and is something the Government must fight. There is no place for illegal drugs in this society.
If we introduce a national identity card scheme, it would give a statutory basis for gardaí to enter public houses where they suspect underage drinking to be taking place. I do not suggest it happens in many bars, but it is happening and is causing consternation. Once people start drinking at a young age, the buzz they will want by the time they are 18 and going to college is drugs. It is not just an urban problem but is happening in the most rural areas and I hope that is something the Minister, Deputy Flood, takes into consideration when discussing the drugs problem.
A number of people state soft drugs should be legalised. That is another claim which must be strongly opposed.
Debate adjourned.