Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 20 Oct 2022

Vol. 1028 No. 2

Coercion of a Minor (Misuse of Drugs Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage [Private Members]

Deputy Mark Ward

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I wish to acknowledge Deputy Mitchell and Deputy Martin Kenny, who introduced this Bill with me on First Stage. I also thank the Minister of State for taking the time to stay for the late shift on a Thursday. I appreciate him taking the time to be here. The thrust of this Bill is to make it more difficult for older, more experienced criminals to groom children into criminality. The cycle of poverty and disadvantage leading to children being vulnerable to grooming by drug gangs is something that we, as legislators, need to break. Our Bill will help address that, and will ensure that the Garda and the Courts Service can charge a criminal with what is effectively the exploitation of our children. It basically targets the grooming of our children into criminality. The legislation is focused on adults involved in criminality and drug dealing who target and coerce children to move and supply drugs for them. For too long, criminals have groomed children in both urban and rural communities right across Ireland. The children in our communities deserve to be protected from this criminality and kept safe in order that they can have a better future. We cannot allow drug gangs to continue to be such a scourge on our communities. This Bill will make it a stand-alone offence for adults to use children in communities for the sale and distribution of drugs. It is simple legislation but if passed, it will have a major impact on our communities. If passed, this legislation will ensure these criminals are held to account and cannot use our children to make massive profits for themselves. Anyone found guilty of this offence will face a prison sentence that fits the crime.

Older criminals using children for criminal activities is not a new phenomenon in disadvantaged areas. However, there has been a visible increase of it in communities over the last couple of years. Young people are being targeted by older, experienced drug dealers to sell and deliver drugs. Children are being groomed by unscrupulous drug dealers. The children are attracted by the flashy cars, the new runners, the few bob in their pocket and the status of being considered a so-called somebody. Let me tell the Minister of State something and I am sure he will agree with me. These criminals are nobodies. They suck the lifeblood out of our communities and they offer nothing but devastation in return. We need to be proactive rather than reactive and target these young people with the appropriate diversionary services before they end up in the hands of drug dealers.

There is also a scourge of drug debt intimidation that is foisted on our community. If a young person is caught with a quantity of drugs, then the criminals demand payment. They often exaggerate the price and put mothers and fathers in fear, for not only their own lives but also those of their children, when demanding payments. This Bill would deter criminals from using children to sell or supply drugs, therefore leading to fewer instances of drugs debt intimidation. I look forward to the debate and welcome all contributions and opinions on how we can progress this legislation.

Deputy Denise Mitchell

I am happy to see this Bill being debated on Second Stage today. This Bill is a protection for families, children and communities that face the daily scourge of drug dealers. We have all heard the stories and we have all seen the court reports. It is accepted that despicable drug gangs have been targeting children and exploiting them to move and sell drugs for many years. These individuals will seek out a child or a group of children to do their bidding. Dealers do this knowing full well that if the child is caught holding or moving drugs, the dealers themselves will not be held responsible in any meaningful way. They target these children, who can be really good kids, raised by hard-working families who do not send their children out to do this. From the stories I have heard, I know that some of these children are being enticed to do the dealers' dirty work with the promise of money, mobile phones or even status. There are children who fall foul of these gangs because they are disadvantaged for whatever reason. Some of these kids might already owe a drug debt to these criminals. They may have been targeted because they come from a background of disadvantage but the main point here is that they are just children. The Garda does its best to hold these disgusting individuals to account through the courts but there is simply not enough legislation to cover this crime. The members of the Garda working with these children have said themselves that the targeting and coercion of a child into moving or holding drugs is usually just the first step before the child is sucked up into this sort of criminality. I accept that as a society, we need to examine the underlying reasons as to why children are attracted to this lifestyle. We need to have the conversation about drugs and we need to see the citizens' assembly set up but as legislators, we are responsible for putting things in place that will make it more difficult for these criminals to operate. That is why we need this Bill.

We need it to offer protection to our children, our neighbours' children and our communities as a whole.

Deputy Paul Donnelly

I thank Deputies Ward, Mitchell and Kenny for bringing forward this Bill to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act and create a new criminal offence to criminalise the use and coercion of children in the sale and distribution of drugs. The Bill will make it a stand-alone offence for adults to use children for the sale and distribution of drugs. It will make it easier for the Garda to press charges against these adult criminals. I welcome the Bill as a tool to tackle the problem of vulnerable young people being sucked into these vicious criminal drug gangs which will use and abuse them until they are dead or locked up.

The so-called war on drugs that has been fought for decades has failed. We need to change the way we deal with recreational drug use and those who are addicted to drugs. Until then, we will forever be introducing Bills to tackle the effects of drugs on young and old people of all classes, and specifically their effect on working-class communities. We need a grown-up conversation about this failure to deal with drug use and misuse, and I believe a citizens' assembly is a sensible way forward. That is required sooner rather than later.

When I talk about vulnerable young people being sucked into these drugs gangs, let me say that I can put names to them. Some of them are dead and others are locked up. Still others continue to run around with those drug gangs. A few got out and have changed their lives. This legislation can only be a part of a suite of measures. What else can we do? It is not rocket science. We need a well-resourced Garda unit to target these drug gangs and to identify the people involved at a young age and an early stage. More importantly, that Garda unit must have the time and resources to be able to deal with the issues and intervene.

We need smaller class sizes. Many of these young people are from disadvantaged areas and leave school early. We know for a fact that people who leave school early are at serious risk of getting involved in criminal activity because all the studies have proved it. We need a DEIS-plus programme. There are certain areas, both urban and rural, that need an intensive and upgraded DEIS school system, where classroom sizes are much smaller because the schools are dealing with difficult and complex issues with students. We need a doubling of funding for the school completion programme because early school leaving is a strong indicator as to whether people will end up in the criminal justice system. We need to work with those young people and prevent them from being sucked into drug gangs.

We also need more social workers, family support workers and youth workers. The austerity measures of the past ten or 12 years have devastated every single part of the section of society that helps and supports young people in working-class communities. We need local authorities to carry out their functions as landlords and move to evict those people who have an iron grip on their communities. I will shortly bring forward a Bill to hold local authorities to account for the actions of their tenants and enable residents and residents associations to bring local authorities to the District Court.

There is enormous experience on this side of the House, to the right and left of me, as there is on the other side of the House, in dealing with the drug issue. It is important that such people are working on the drug problem. We will work positively on this legislation to try to ensure we can continue to support our communities because we live and work in them. We experience our communities and know the pain and grief that are caused by these drug gangs. There are solutions and things we can do. We know what some of those things are but we need the resources, the people on the ground, to work with those young people and try to support them and keep them out of the drugs trade. We do not want anybody in jail. We do not want any young people involved in these drug gangs. We do not want drug gangs. As legislators, we are put into this House to try to solve these problems. We have the solutions but we need the resources to ensure that those solutions are put into practice.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Deputy James Browne)

The Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, and I would like to thank Deputies Ward, Mitchell and Kenny for introducing this Private Members' Bill, which is on Second Stage, and which highlights the serious issue of the involvement of children in criminal wrongdoing in respect of controlled drugs. The Bill seeks to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 to criminalise the use and coercion of children in drugs distribution by making it a criminal offence to cause a minor to be in possession of drugs for sale or supply. The aims of the Bill are in line with Government policy and commitments in the programme for Government and Justice Plan 2022 to publish legislation to deal with adults who groom children into criminality. Therefore, the Government is not opposing the Bill on Second Stage. However, while the intention behind the provisions of the Bill proposed by the Deputies have merit, there are legal, policy and operational issues with the Bill as drafted. I will outline those issues shortly.

Before I do, however, I advise the Deputies and the House that Government legislation to address the grooming of children into criminality, as committed to under the programme for Government, is at an advanced stage. The Minister hopes to publish the criminal justice (engagement of children in the commission of offences) Bill 2022 before the end of this year. In considering the most appropriate approach to countering the very serious issue of the grooming of children for criminal activity, the Minister consulted the Garda, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and the Attorney General in order to ensure the adoption of an approach most likely to succeed and to provide the broadest benefit to the vulnerable children at whom it is aimed. The engagement of children in the commission of offences Bill will criminalise the engagement of children in any type of criminality, including, but broader than, in respect of the sale and distribution of drugs as proposed in this Private Members' Bill. The Government will also limit the new offences to adults and thereby remove the possibility of further criminalising children who may already be involved in criminality. This is an important element of the overarching policy intention to target those who control criminality without adversely affecting vulnerable children themselves. This Bill has been developed in addition to the other non-legislative measures under way to address child criminality.

The Deputies will be aware of the University of Limerick's groundbreaking Greentown project, which has informed the development of both policy and practice in this area. This innovative project received recognition at the 2020 European crime prevention awards and provides insights into how criminal networks attract and confine children, encouraging and coercing them to be involved in serious crime and limiting their opportunities to escape the influence of those criminal networks. The subsequent national prevalence report shows that the issue of children being groomed into criminality is prevalent across the State. As well as analysing how criminal networks recruit and control often vulnerable children, the team involved in the Greentown project carried out work on developing a bespoke intervention programme. This work was assisted by an international team of experts on crime and criminal networks, together with Irish scientific, policy and practice experts in child protection and welfare, drugs and community development, strongly supported by key State agencies, particularly the Garda. The intervention programme is designed to reduce and disrupt the influence of criminal networks on children in a local area and provide supports for the positive development of the affected children.

The Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027, which I launched on 15 April 2021, aligns with the objectives of Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, and the next iteration of the national policy framework for children and young adults. It addresses a wide range of issues connected with the involvement of young people with the justice system and the steps that can be taken by all agencies, working with community partners, to keep young people out of trouble. The strategy is designed to provide a developmental framework to address key ongoing challenges, as well as new and emerging issues in the youth justice area. This includes preventing offending behaviour from occurring and diverting children and young adults who commit a crime from further offending and involvement with the criminal justice system. The youth justice strategy is conceived largely as a developmental framework and emphasises evidence-informed development of programmes and interventions. Implementation of the strategy will prioritise enhancement of existing services, such as Garda youth diversion projects, and the development of a range of more specialised interventions, with a particular focus on harder to reach children and young people. It also provides for enhanced criminal justice processes, detention and post-detention measures to provide consistent support to encourage desistance from crime and promote positive personal development for young offenders.

Government policy in respect of drugs and alcohol is set out in the national drugs strategy, entitled Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery: A health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017-2025.

The strategy reflects a change in attitudes to substance misuse and promotes a more compassionate and humane approach to people who use drugs, with addiction treated first and foremost as a public health issue. This is underpinned by the key values of compassion, respect, equality and inclusion.

Children living in communities with higher prevalence of problem substance use are at increased risk of developing problems themselves. For some children, there are early identifiable behaviour patterns that indicate possible problems with substances later in life. The grooming of children by those who control criminal activity and the identification of crime networks as a separate and plausible risk factor underlying criminal offending by certain children are extremely serious matters which the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and I are working hard to address. Irrespective of what changes we might make to the law, the fact remains that attempting to deal with the exploitation of children for any criminal purpose requires a carefully considered approach, involving consideration of prosecutorial, operational and other service delivery issues, as well the strict letter of the law.

Returning to the Private Members’ Bill, the prosecution of any new offences involving the incitement or coercion of children would not be straightforward and there are likely to be difficulties with the workability of such a law in practice. Therefore, proposals for new legislation in this area, such as those proposed by the Deputies in this Bill, must be considered with the utmost care, taking into account the views of prosecutors, law enforcement and other experienced professionals working in the area when framing any such proposals. The Private Members’ Bill will make it an offence to cause a minor to be in possession of drugs for sale or supply. This offence exists in law already in that, if any person causes a minor to be in possession of a controlled drug, it will almost always be the case that the person was in possession of the controlled substance originally and either supplied, arranged for the supply, or sold it to the minor. The person will therefore have committed an offence under section 15 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. The existing offence does not require the offender to be in possession of the drug at the moment when the offence is detected and the prosecution can prove constructive possession, for example when drugs are purchased online but not delivered into the hands of the accused.

In the new offence proposed in the Private Members’ Bill, additional proofs may be required which are not required to prove possession. Therefore, the unintended effect might be that the new offence is more difficult to prove than the existing offence. The Office of the Attorney General also pointed to potential constitutional issues with the provision that it shall not be necessary to prove that the person knew that the child was a child. This provision would appear to seek to create a strict liability element to the offence, which is problematic from the perspective of existing case law.

Furthermore, in many cases, the people buying drugs from children are other children. Therefore, it is important that any new legislation that seeks to address harms done to children does not risk further criminalising them. Unfortunately, the way that the Bill is drafted risks further criminalising vulnerable children who are already involved in the sale and supply of drugs by potentially criminalising a child who involves another child in the sale or distribution of drugs. There is no guarantee that those who ultimately control the activities of the children involved, whether as the offender or the victim, would be effectively targeted by the provisions.

Notwithstanding the policy and legal issues with the Private Members’ Bill that I have just outlined, I wish to reiterate appreciation to the Deputies for seeking to address the serious problem of child grooming. Their proposals clearly have serious merit. On this basis, the Government is not opposed to the Bill. However, I am also pleased to reassure the Deputies that the objective which their Bill seeks to achieve will be addressed more comprehensively by the criminal justice (engagement of children in the commission of offences) Bill 2022. The Government Bill will have a broader reach in that it will encompass any criminal activity in which a child is compelled, coerced, induced, invited or deceived to engage, beyond the sale or supply of drugs. In addition, the Government Bill limits the offence to adults and so removes the possibility of further criminalising children who may already be involved in criminality. It will also address the harm that is caused to children by drawing them into a world of criminality, which in itself is critical. As I noted, the Bill is at an advanced stage and the Government hopes to publish it soon, before the end of this year.

In short, I want to thank the Deputies for an important Private Members’ Bill. The Government supports the intent and with our own Bill we are going to attempt to address it in a more detailed and broader manner.

Acting Chairman (Deputy John Lahart)

Is the Bill opposed?

Deputy James Browne

No.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

How long do I have?

Acting Chairman (Deputy John Lahart)

There is a limited time for the debate, but I would take full advantage of the fact that the clock is not visible.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

That is all right. First, I thank my colleagues. We all accept that we need something to deal with the coercion of minors and the fact of grooming by drugs gangs of very young kids. In some cases these are very vulnerable kids who are at the periphery of society. We all know that these drugs gangs do this from a point of view of protecting themselves and of having a buffer between themselves and the breaking of the law.

I accept some of what the Minister of State says regarding certain legal issues, but we need to see, for the want of a better term, the “colour of your money” in relation to that legislation. It is accepted this is something that we have not dealt with sufficiently and that is accepting the huge difficulty we have in dealing with the overall drug problem. This will be the third time this week that I say on the floor of the Dáil that the war on drugs has been well and truly lost. The Minister of State may even have heard that previously from me. That is where we are at.

We know about the huge amounts of drug use and drug addiction and we know about the huge number of communities that are under severe pressure at this point in time. They have been so for a considerable amount of time. We know that families are pressurised by these gangs. We have to look at a way and a means of dealing with this. We also have to do it while accepting the reality of the world we live in, in which there is a huge amount of drug taking. We are not stopping what is coming in from Afghanistan or Colombia. We certainly are not stopping what might start as legal drugs, and I know there may be some certain question marks regarding opioids and all sorts of drugs. We know that the place is awash with benzos and we have to deal with that reality. We have to deal with the reality in many cases.

What I believed was a drug dealer 20 years ago probably was not much of a drug dealer. Whereas one could name ten or 20 in a town, now one could easily name 200 or 300. In some cases, people fall into it for a short period of time and get out. There are many sad cases but the saddest cases of all are the ones where people have lost their lives, where families have been impacted and beyond that. We have all dealt with families that have had the knock on the door. We all know of the debt that starts with €300 or €400 and then jumps to €800, €1,200 to €15,000 to all sorts of crazy figures. On some level, as a business model, it is perfect and it works a hell of a lot better than actually selling drugs. They just keep multiplying the debt, and it is utterly unsustainable. Unfortunately, when they discover a family, which with the best of intentions wants to actually pay this debt, they think that they can get through the gap, but all that they are telling the dealer is that the tap is open and they will keep coming back.

We need the citizens’ assembly as soon as possible. I would like to think that the citizens can be braver and courageous, maybe more so than we are in here. There is a definite need for that. We need to look at novel approaches. I do not think we can continue with the way we are going at this point in time. I do not think it will work in any way, shape or form. I am fed up that most of the time when I am dealing with An Garda Síochána it is regarding issues surrounding drugs and drug debt intimidation. I have been highly impressed by a number of cases where gardaí have gone above and beyond in dealing with these particular sets of circumstances. We are all aware of what happened in Drogheda, where drugs gangs put it up to the State and to a degree the State gave them the answer and we would like to see that across the board.

In some cases, we are dealing with really clever drug dealers. I have seen drug dealers in Dundalk, my hometown, who have been very careful in who they target and the houses they burn. We deal with people who will probably have come to the attention of An Garda Síochána for other reasons. I have even seen instances where some of the most impoverished people I know have had their houses burnt. These are council houses. I say to myself that there is no way this guy thinks he can get money out of them, but it is not about them. It is about the next person who will get the knock on the door, so that they will know what is coming.

I am very glad that we now have what we did not have a number of years ago, that is, drug squads up and running to tackle this issue. We will never have enough resources to deal with it. We cannot possibly out-police the problems we have at this point. We have to concentrate absolutely on those dangerous drugs gangs and those people who put great pressure on families. We have to deal incredibly harshly with those who use kids and vulnerable people. It is not only children. We have also seen cases of local drug dealers deciding to use the houses of people with other difficulties as their front end or even going beyond that. Any kid can fall into this. Some of the best kids I know have found themselves in bad circumstances. However, there are also kids who are targeted on the basis that they are on the periphery. We need to put serious effort into family and community supports long before we deal with the Garda diversionary projects and the youth justice strategy the Minister of State spoke about, which are necessary. We have to deal with families and communities at a far earlier stage. Otherwise, this will continue. We definitely need a citizens' assembly and I hope for something more novel.

Deputy Gary Gannon

I support the Bill in the fullest and congratulate Sinn Féin on proposing it. We will be supporting it fully and hope it goes through. The Bill seeks to ban the coercion of minors into drug dealing. We see the full effects of this activity in many of our communities every week and every day. When you think about the coercion of minors into the drug trade or try to describe it to somebody else who may not be as familiar with it, you often think it is achieved in a subtle way and that kids are somehow enticed into the trade by people who give them reams of money and who go around with expensive tracksuits, motorbikes and cars. I assure people that, in many instances, that is not the case. Often, young people get into a small amount of debt which then must be repaid by selling drugs. Debts that start off small become incredibly large in some cases. Then the intimidation starts. I hope that the drug-related intimidation of young people into the drug trade is addressed, whether through this Bill, which will not pass because the Government is not supporting it, or through the Government's Bill. It is vitally important because, in the communities I represent, families who get that knock on the door very often go to charities to get support or to ad hoc groups or moneylenders because neither the State nor the law are on their side and they have no recourse to action. Even if they have such recourse, they are terrified of the ramifications of taking it.

I recently heard of the case of a young kid who had got involved in the sale of cocaine. This was forced upon him because of a small debt he owed as a result of his own addiction. This kid's family's door was consistently being knocked at. They were being threatened and their windows were getting knocked in. That kid has now had to flee to the UK at 17 years of age and has to try to build a life for himself over there. That is what is happening in our communities at this very moment. Whatever legislation is put in place, it needs to be backed up with significant resources and there needs to be consequences for the people who are inflicting this terror on communities and individuals. It needs to be stringent and the Government will have our full support as it ploughs ahead with it.

We talk about the coercion of minors into the selling of drugs. It is inhumane on every level. What we cannot separate ourselves from is what coerces people to get involved in taking these drugs, leading to these devastating effects. People are using cocaine. Heroin used to be the issue and there are still complications in that regard but they mainly affect an older generation. We saw crack cocaine in the documentary on O'Connell Street the other night. It is rampant in communities. The gateway to many of these drugs, which we cannot separate from these issues and which does not seem to be catered for in this Bill or in the Bill the Government is bringing forward, lies in trauma and poverty. We often say in the Chamber and elsewhere that we need to have a conversation about these drugs or other matters. We need a full and mature conversation reflective of a modern republic that deals with people with compassion when they need it and to recognise that poverty and trauma are gateways to addiction. If we recognise that, we will stop criminalising people for their desperate need to inject themselves with or otherwise take some sort of substance that, for the briefest moment of time, alleviates their pain.

That is all that is happening here. Ever since drugs, and heroin in particular, first penetrated working-class Dublin communities in the late 1970s before spreading out like a virus, all people have been doing is injecting themselves with substances to deal with the pain they are experiencing. It is unfathomable to me that, in the year 2022, we still criminalise people for that trauma. The Taoiseach promised me yesterday that we are going have a citizens' assembly on drugs, possibly in January. That is very welcome. That conversation needs to start from a position of no longer criminalising people for trying to alleviate themselves of pain. It is a very simple premise. If we start from there, we will advance significantly as a republic. I will be supporting the Bill. I thank the Deputies for bringing it forward.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I too support this Bill. I thank and compliment Deputies Ward, Mitchell and Martin Kenny for bringing forward this legislation this evening. It is an honest effort by Teachtaí who have experience of what is happening on the ground. I mean no personal criticism but I sometimes wonder whether the system here is capable of understanding this massive problem with taking and dealing drugs, which is found across all strata of society including among professionals and everybody else. This brings misery to ordinary citizens, who tend to be, as others have said, people from poorer backgrounds or who have not had a good time in life. However, it is also often the case that people from other walks of life fall off the cliff. It starts and then becomes a spiralling cycle. I was in the Chamber this morning to ask a question on health. I ask that more drug workers be appointed in my own area in Tipperary. We are 50% short of our proper complement of mental health staff in all the other areas of the health system. It is spiralling out of control.

Families face misery, intimidation and threats. Other Deputies have recounted instances of these and I will do so as well. There are families who have been devastated. I have grandparents who come to me - it is seldom parents but normally grandparents - and tell me that their grandson has been threatened and has to emigrate to Australia. In one case, the grandson in question did not like Australia and came back after a year and was then intimidated to such a degree that he took his own life. That has happened more than once in my own town of Clonmel.

We are not doing enough. The Garda resources are just not sufficient. There is a new Garda policy. We saw it in Tipperary on Monday morning. We had a chief superintendent, Derek Smart. He was a good guy to deal with and very hands-on. However, the amount of resources and number of gardaí across the whole county was miserable. Mr. Smart's position is now gone and the new chief superintendent for Tipperary, whose name eludes me, is based in Clare and covers two counties. There are issues with the distance, the disconnect and the removal of the powers that be and the connections.

I salute ordinary gardaí, including community gardaí and the limited number who are on the drug squads, on the work they do but we have to deal with two fronts here. We obviously have to deal with the criminality but we also have to deal with the cause and to be compassionate with people. There are videos circulating of incidents on the streets of my town last Friday, and every day for that matter, involving unfortunate people who are literally staggering around, falling and abusing one another and other people in the middle of the day. We need people to support them and to try to get them into rehabilitation. We also have to look at free legal aid. We must try to get at this issue in schools. I am not blaming schools or those at home but vaping and the kinds of substances used are a problem now as well. We have had unfortunate incidents involving vaping in Tipperary. It is very hard to stop it when it starts. There is a lot of money involved. Everyone knows the gangs involved. We have been looking at Drogheda and other towns over the years and warning and pleading that this not be allowed happen in other towns but it has been replicated. The people involved have been quoted as saying that they have an army and cannot be touched.

It is unbelievable.

I see the Minister of State is not opposing this Bill and he is talking about bringing in legislation himself. The legislation has to be robust and strong, as well as compassionate. However, all the legislation in the world is useless if we do not have the resources and the health workers, alongside the other organisations like the Garda, social workers, mental health staff and beds, and therapeutic services. We do not have them in all the buildings belonging to the HSE. We are in a very sad place. It is so sad that people and families get entrapped and are not able to do anything. The Minister of State is going to accept this Bill but I do not know how far it will go after that. I compliment the Deputies who put it forward.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I am greatly encouraged by this debate. I thank Deputies Martin Kenny, Mitchell and Ward for bringing forward this legislation. All those Deputies have a great track record in this area. I am greatly taken by the remarks of Deputy Ó Murchú, who said the war on drugs is over. It needs to be over because the war on drugs is a war on people but it is also a war on a particular type of person. Deputy Paul Donnelly is absolutely right. We need to broaden this debate and talk about poverty, disadvantage and education. Deputy Gannon is also correct that we need to bring forward the conversation about decriminalisation of the drug user.

My problem with this debate is that I have come to the sad conclusion, over a period of years dealing with this issue, that the State and the Irish public, including the Irish media and often Irish politicians, just do not value the lives that are lost enough. We just do not place the same value on the poor lives that are lost in the crossfire of drug crime or through addiction because they are perceived to be powerless. I often wonder if cattle died at the same rate as people do from overdoses in Ireland whether there would be a greater national outcry. If cattle died at the same rate people die of overdoses, there would be emergency legislation, national conversations, protests outside the door and media demands for action. However, because the people who die from overdoses or in the crossfire of drug crime are considered to be valueless or less worthy, it is allowed to continue.

I will give an example from this week. Apart from the fact that the Minister of State with responsibility for drugs is probably the most absent and most disinterested of drugs Ministers I have ever come across, one of the Government's own backbenchers this very week used a dehumanising term to describe people who are sucked into addiction. He called them "druggies". We have come a long way in Ireland. People who are vulnerable in Irish society used to be called dehumanising terms and we have moved away from that in so many areas. You used to be able to use in common conversation derogatory terms about the Travelling community, migrants, people with disabilities or people from the LGBT community. You cannot do that anymore because we have travelled so far but you can still use a derogatory term about someone who is sucked into addiction any day or night in the national Parliament or on the airwaves and get away with it. There will not be a cry from the Government parties or anybody else demanding an apology for using this phrase. The Deputy in question can go on national radio or his local radio station and double down on it because he knows society thinks the people he is describing are worthless. That, fundamentally, is what is at the heart of this. It is the inequality of it.

The people who die, the young people who have guns put in their hands and get involved in drug crime do it because it gives them some perverse sense of empowerment and because they perceive they are locked out of mainstream society. This is the only way they can get respect. A child is given a gun and told to do a run. That is the only way they feel they can get respect. There are also, as Deputy Gannon quite rightly said, people who are so immersed in pain and trauma that they turn to addiction because it eases the pain. The people who are affected by addiction are disproportionately from disadvantaged communities, such as the Travelling community, migrant communities, people with disabilities, people from the LGBTQ community. That is because they are disconnected and addiction or substance misuse connects them to something. When we criminalise that use of drugs, we are actually criminalising that disconnection and that marginalisation. Yet a Government backbencher can walk in here, use that derogatory term and get away with it. He will get away with it. That Deputy is the chair of the education committee.

We have an historic opportunity across these Houses to do something worthwhile here. Why can we not open the overdose prevention facility that was legislated for in 2017 and passed by Cabinet in 2015? It is waiting to be opened in Merchant's Quay. If it is not possible because of planning concerns, could we not have a mobile clinic? We could use our imagination and begin to save lives now. Are we not doing that because these lives are just not worthy? As the caller to the emergency services said when he found a dead body close to Merchant's Quay, "It is just another junkie." Is that the official State view? It is a view that exists in Irish society. We cannot challenge that view unless we collectively ask ourselves to do better. We could have had that injecting facility already opened or turned it into a mobile facility. We could have opened it in Cork or Limerick instead if there were planning difficulties. We have an opportunity in the citizens' assembly on drugs being held next year to change drug policy here for good, put the person who is most affected by this at the centre of the conversation, and, yes, decriminalise that person and lift that voice. We have to honestly ask ourselves whether the problem is that the lives that are caught in the crossfire, the people who are handed guns as children and the lives that are lost through overdose - we have the third highest overdose rate in Europe, by the way - are just not valued by us.

Deputy Dessie Ellis

I welcome this Bill, which will help protect children from being groomed by adults involved in the drugs trade and provide proper sanction for those who exploit children for this purpose. Vulnerable communities and disadvantaged areas are most impacted by the use and distribution of illegal drugs. The use of illegal drugs affects every demographic across all communities but economically disadvantaged areas suffer the most from it. This situation has not been helped as funds for drug and alcohol task forces have been cut and experienced staff have left. Communities are being devastated by drug problems. Communities and families are being terrorised and intimidated by those involved in the drugs trade. An increasing fear for families is that their children are not only being exposed to the use of these illegal drugs but that they are being groomed by adults and older youths to help in the sale and supply of drugs or to hold weapons and quantities of cash for drug gangs. Children are being enticed, forced and controlled into being involved in this criminal behaviour on behalf of adults who care little about the consequences such activity will have on the child or their future.

A report by the University of Limerick found that children as young as ten or 11 were being groomed for the drugs trade. The report outlined a perverse structure in the drugs trade where those at the top rarely, if ever, involve themselves directly with criminal activity. Younger men and women, who are often drug users themselves, act as the middlemen and young children, some still in primary school, act as runners and carriers for the drug gangs. These young children are seen in a cynical way by the drug gangs as being both expendable and plentiful. The full extent to which this is happening may not be known, as we can only go by Garda figures and what it is aware of. The Garda compiles its information based on crimes reported and Garda intelligence but local communities believe the problem is far greater and far more widespread than what is reported. I believe that too from my years working in the community and being in the local drugs task force. Drug gangs will use different tactics to recruit and exploit children and young people, including bribing them with rewards, befriending them, threatening them or coercing them.

Children can be subject to threats, violence, or having the safety of their families threatened. The children risk becoming users themselves, all of which has a long-term impact on their education and employment opportunities. There are many reasons a child might be recruited into a drugs gang. It can be because of where they live, they may be promised awards or they want to make what they see as easy money. Working for such a gang gives the child a false sense of respect, importance or status. Many of these children come from deprived or disadvantaged backgrounds. They probably feel a sense of belonging when working for these gangs. Such children are generally seen to be vulnerable and as coming from difficult backgrounds, and so are more susceptible to being groomed. This is why we need robust legislation to protect these children and to punish those grooming the children. This Bill will accomplish both.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Deputy James Browne)

On behalf of the Minister, Deputy McEntee, I thank Deputies for this interesting and constructive discussion on this important issue. In particular, I thank Deputies Mark Ward, Denise Mitchell and Martin Kenny for bringing their Bill forward for discussion. I acknowledge all the work involved in doing so. The Minister and I are concerned about children being lured into criminality from an early age.

The Department of Justice has been carrying out significant work on the development of policy and practice in this area. This includes the Department's long-standing support for the University of Limerick's groundbreaking Greentown study. It is important to note that the national prevalence report shows that the issue at the centre of the discussion arises across the State in rural and urban settings. To deal with this problem, which has such a devastating impact on the lives of vulnerable children and on the lives of their family members, the Minister is developing legislation, which I outlined in my opening remarks, the criminal justice (engagement of children in the commission of offences) Bill 2022. This new law will target adults who coerce children into involvement in any form of criminal activity. By taking these reports to the Government, the Bill will better fulfil the overarching policy aim of targeting those who control criminality, without adversely affecting vulnerable children themselves. It is expected that the Government will publish this Bill before the end of 2022.

We recognise the intentions behind the Private Members' Bill and we commend the sponsoring Deputies on bringing forward such a positively intentioned Bill. We recognise that the grooming of children by criminal gangs is a serious matter, particularly where this results in their involvement in the sale and supply of drugs. However, as mentioned, there are some legal and policy issues with the proposed Bill as drafted. The prosecution of new offences involving children is not straightforward. There are frequently difficulties when it comes to applying these proposals in practice, especially where any witnesses are likely to be children or family members who may already be victims of coercion by the people who control the offences. All new legislation in this area must, therefore, be considered with great care. In many cases the people buying drugs from children are also children themselves. It would be unfortunate if proposals motivated by a desire to assist exploited children were to contribute to the criminalisation of other children who have perhaps themselves been coerced and exploited by criminal gangs. Given the way the Bill is drafted, there is no guarantee that its provisions would effectively target those who ultimately control the activities of children involved in the sale or supply of drugs. The unintended effect is that it risks further criminalising children already involved in criminality. It would make it more difficult for those children to find a way out of a life of crime.

Advice from the Attorney General's office has pointed out legal issues with the Private Members' Bill, which I have mentioned and will not repeat. I will, however, take this opportunity to reassure the House that the Government Bill, which is at an advanced drafting stage, does address the legal and policy considerations that have been raised in the Private Members' Bill. The Government Bill will address not only the involvement of children in the sale and supply of drugs but also their engagement in any other form of criminal activity, while still protecting those children already involved in crime from further harm, by limiting the offence to adults.

I will conclude by reiterating my appreciation to the Deputies for seeking to address this serious issue, which is the cause of considerable and potentially lifelong harm to some of the most vulnerable children in our society. I am pleased to reassure the House that the criminal justice (engagement of children in the commission of offences) Bill 2022 will address this issue comprehensively and will be published in the coming months.

Deputy Mark Ward

I welcome that the Government will not oppose this Bill. I acknowledge that the Minister has issues with some of the ways the legislation is laid out, but this is why we have pre-legislative scrutiny; it is there to iron all of this out. As the Opposition, we do not have the services of the Attorney General. We would love to have the services of the Attorney General when drafting legislation. Maybe in the coming years we will have the opportunity ourselves over this side of the House to have that service.

I acknowledge also that the Government will bring forward legislation, which is also welcome, but we want to see it as soon as possible. I hope the commitment to publish it by the end of 2022 is met.

As well as legislation, we need to have the resources in our communities so we can combat this issue to begin with. Deputy Paul Donnelly referred to smaller classrooms in DEIS areas and other areas. We also need to make sure that we fully resource our drug and alcohol task forces. I was a director of the Clondalkin drug and alcohol task force for many years. Earlier we talked about crack cocaine. There were so many times we had chances to be reactive in our community. When we saw an emerging need in our community, for example, and wanted to put a policy or measures in place to deal with that, we could not because we did not have the resources. We need to make sure that we have the resources in place for our communities.

I thank all Deputies for a lively and heartening debate. Powerful contributions were made on this side of the House. These were honest and passionate contributions. It is exactly what is needed. I echo the calls for a citizens' assembly on drugs. It is time for an adult conversation. We talk about the language we use daily such as "getting out of the head". What does that mean? It means that people want to get out of the space that is going on in their head. They want to use an illicit substance. They want to do something that will take them away from themselves. That is what drug use does and that is what addiction does. It gives calm to that anxious inner world that is going on. It gives calm to the underlying reasons we spoke about of trauma poverty. That is what it does. We need to tackle the underlying reasons and issues.

I have worked in many drug services over the years. That was my background before I came into this Chamber. One of the places that stuck with me for years was one of the most challenging but also one of the most rewarding. It was a role I had when I was working with under-18-year-olds in an area of Dublin. I will not mention the specific area because I do not want to further stigmatise it. I welcomed Deputy Ó Ríordáin into the project when he was a Minister of State at the time with responsibility for the national drugs strategy. We were working with under-18s. If I had said to those young lads that they were vulnerable, they would go through me for a shortcut. That is the last thing they thought they were, but they were vulnerable. I saw these young lads and worked with them. I helplessly and hopelessly tried to help these young lads. I could see in front of my eyes how they were being enticed into criminality by older and more experienced drug dealers who told them, "Hold these drugs for us and whatever drugs the lads are using you will get your touch out of that." All of a sudden the local gardaí would get a call and these young kids would be the pawns among criminal kingmakers. They would let gardaí know that these kids had the drugs, maybe just to get themselves off the hook. That was well known right across Dublin. These young kids were out of school and they were not engaged in employment. They were not engaged in anything other than the drugs they were using and the drug dealers. We need to have resources in place so we can tackle that. I was an individual and on my own and working with these under-18s. That was my role. I was on my own trying to deal with these young lads. We saw some good outcomes but we also saw some not-so-good outcomes. Unfortunately, we lost some young people.

We need to examine the underlying issues that contribute towards making this lifestyle look attractive. Again, it is an escape. It is the calm in an anxious world. Getting out of the head is an escape from reality that these young people are in. Poverty and the lack of opportunities are always top of the list in any conversations I have, not only with young people but also with the services that are there to support them.

Reference is always made to intergenerational drug users. It is not about intergenerational drug use; it is about intergenerational poverty and trauma that we deal with daily. We need to target these young people before they end up in the hands of drug dealers. I have always believed that there is no such thing as a lost cause. I have worked with people right across the spectrum of drug use over the years. Some have had chaotic lifestyles, some were at the other end of the spectrum and had years of abstaining behind them, and there was everybody in between.

There is no such thing as a lost cause. We used to have to work on logic models and, to get the resources for the drugs task forces from the Minister, we had to do tick-box exercises and quantify what was a success. A success to me an awful lot of the time was when somebody turned up the next morning because, sometimes when they were leaving my service, I did not believe they would get through the night. It is hard to quantify that when filling out HSE forms, ticking boxes, working on logic models and jumping through all the hoops they make us jump through.

The child is vulnerable in this, as are the drug users. We need a more productive way of dealing with drug users. Directing them away from the Judiciary services and into healthcare and recovery services has to be the way forward. It was said at the start by other Deputies, probably a lot better than I am saying it, that the citizens' assembly on drugs is a way forward on that.

I thank everybody for their contributions. I acknowledge that the Government is not opposing this Bill and I hope it gets to the stage of legislative scrutiny. I look forward to seeing what the Government has proposed by the end of 2022.

Question put and agreed to.

Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 6.01 p.m. go dtí 2 p.m., Dé Máirt, an 25 Deireadh Fómhair 2022.

The Dáil adjourned at 6.01 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 25 October 2022.