One of the difficulties about discussing a Bill like this which purports to deal with the problem of drug abuse and misuse is that to speak against it is almost like speaking in favour of sin. For that reason I would like to say that I have had a long involvement in the area of drugs abuse and misuse. I am surprised at some of the approaches being taken in this Bill. I intend to look at it from a number of different angles.
The first and most important point which has to be put forward to anybody involved in the drugs scene is that the drugs problem will never be cured by the most efficient customs service in the world. It has never purported to set out to do that and it never will do that. The other thing I say at the beginning, just to establish my position as regards the representative of the Department of Finance, is that I do not have confidence in the Department of Finance's trust in the customs service. I think they have always seen it as something to guard the Revenue, that the area of customs itself was something like agency work which was not part of their remit. They may well be right because I have often felt that that part of the customs service should be dealt with in another Department. It has suffered and suffered badly for that reason over the years.
I believe what my colleague, Senator McKenna, has said about the huge profits to be made in drugs importation, drugs abuse and trafficking and selling of drugs. Certainly the figures are quite right. The latest figures from the Council of Europe indicate that the cocaine being bought or sold in the Andes or in South America is selling on the streets of Europe or New York for sometimes like 600 times the factor. There are huge amounts of money involved. I stress that point because there is so much money involved in it that traffickers can afford to buy aeroplanes. They fill them with cocaine, get a pilot to take that aeroplane through or across any border and land it in the rough somewhere. They abandon perfectly good jet aircraft of the most modern type, take the cargo from it and work out enough profit to make that kind of activity profitable. That is one of the reasons why no customs force will cure drug abuse or drug misuse.
I take issue with one other point. People refer to soft drugs. There are no soft drugs. There is no such thing as a soft drug. We do that in order, in a sense, to anaesthetise ourselves from our own involvement and the fact that we might be smokers or drinkers. I certainly would be prepared to say that I drink too much. We have a society where drugs have the cure for everything. From childbirth to death drugs are used all the way — whether it be to make childbirth a less painful activity — to curing infants at a very young age. We are rearing a generation who see a cure in drugs for every problem. We are rearing a generation who see the whole access to and the whole social life revolving around drug use: I am talking about tobacco and alcohol particularly. We are trying to say to young people that at the end of the day drugs are bad. The are not stupid. They see cures for drugs coming out of bottles, they see people going out drinking, smoking and enjoying themselves. In that context you cannot fool young people by saying that drugs are bad. The reason I have stressed this point — and it is slightly pushing what is covered in the Bill but it does refer to it and the Minister referred to it — is that the only way drugs abuse or misuse can ever be cured or at least brought down to manageable levels is by having proper and effective prevention educational strategies. That is not going to be. The demise of the Health Education Bureau — I am not going to dwell on it — is very sad indeed.
I am a member of the National Drugs Abuse Co-ordinating Committee — that is the Minister for Health's committee. I am also a member of a number of European and national committees on the whole area of drugs abuse and misuse. Drug abuse and misuse will not be dealt with by this Bill and anybody who thinks it can be is fooling themselves. That is by way of starters. It does attempt to meet and deal with certain problems. I want also to speak from the point of view of the customs officials.
As was quite rightly said by the previous speaker, Senator McKenna, they are very often cast in the worst possible light. They are workers like many of the rest of us. They are organised workers who are concerned and care about the jobs they are doing. They are frustrated by the ineffectiveness of their work because of Government cutbacks and the fact that they are not supported where they feel they should be supported. They are people who are prepared to use and get involved in the most modern techniques of drugs detection if they get the equipment, the training and the resources. They are not getting those things. It is important that that should be stated and made quite clear. I am prepared to go into detail on those issues should the Minister or anybody not take my word for it because I can certainly give chapter and verse on all of them.
One of the big problems that has always made the customs officer's work very difficult in the area of importation of drugs has been what is referred to as the meeters and greeters. In other words, if somebody comes off a plane or into a port, carrying some contraband material and meets somebody at the entry point and passes the contraband material over to them the customs officer does not have, under existing legislation, the authority to search, detain, arrest that other person. The customs officer's authority only extended to the traveller. Therefore, it was quite proper that the Government would seek to approach this problem. They have approached it by the wording in the Bill, "that an officer of Customs and Excise who with reasonable cause suspects that a person at or in the vicinity of any port or airport or the land frontier... — in other words, the person does not have to be a traveller, the person being at or in the vicinity of any port or airport.
I would like to say to the drafters of this Bill that I am involved in a number of organisations where we look at rules quite regularly. If somebody at an AGM of the most minor club of which I am a member put forward that as a serious rule that could be applied and implemented I would say they were nuts. I was reared in a house where my father always said the worst kind of Government is a Government that introduces legislation which is unimplementable. I want to know what "at" or "near" an airport or airstrip means. For your information, there are roughly 56 airstrips in Ireland. There is no part of this country which is not "at" or "near" the vicinity of an airport, never mind ports. I know that because I had reason to make a list of them quite recently. It means nothing.
I also want to make another point. I can understand the feelings of people when they look at the problems caused by drug traffickers, drug dealers, and so on, that no power is too much to give to the Garda or customs officers in this area. I have to say immediately I disagree with that totally. I disagree with that as somebody who understands the background, who knows customs officers and who was reared by a Garda. I think there should be checks and balances on everybody. I want to point out to people that the Member of the Oireachtas who has spoken longest and most vehemently and has taken as strong a stand as anybody on the question of drugs abuse has himself been stopped, searched and held on at least three occasions under the 1977 Act. I think that is disgraceful. I am pointing that out to say that it can be abused. That does not mean it will be abused.
I do not believe there should be rights of detention. I believe there should be rights of arrest and search but it should be approached in a much more professional manner than the fire brigade action we are looking at in this Bill. I accept the problems and I think they should be approached. They should be approached on the basis that our whole legal system has been structured, that it would be better than 99 guilty people went free than that one innocent person finished up behind bars. That is the whole basis of the legal system which we work. I would like that to be kept in mind by people who draft Bills.
To give you an idea of how easy it is for a customs officer to get this thing wrong on a charge sheet — I am sure it will come as a surprise to many people but it is something I have been hearing from customs officers for years now. At present for a customs officer to charge a person he has to refer on the charge sheet to whichever is the appropriate section of the Customs Consolidation Act, 1876, section 2 of the Customs Act, 1956, the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1977, and the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1984, which sought to amend the 1977 Act. Now we are bringing in another Bill, the 1987 Bill. I am sure it will be news to the Minister that there are judges in this town who have thrown out the complicated charges that have been brought before them by customs officers because they could not understand them. They have thrown them out and asked for a charge to be brought under the 1977 Act. We do not want a Customs and Excise (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. We want one statutory instrument to deal with customs. It is time we dealt with this matter properly. It has been dealt with across the water. I am not saying we should follow whatever is done there, but something should be done about the matter. Basically we are talking about the 1876 Act which was a Westminster Act.
As I said, the judges dealing with these matters have been totally and utterly confused. The customs officers very often do not have enough power in these matters and therefore they have to bring in the Garda. Up to now if somebody met a traveller at the airport and got illegal items from them the gardaí had to be called in before any action could be taken. This meant delays and it also meant that people could escape from the airport. This Bill quite rightly addresses that problem.
When reading the Second Report of the Select Committee on Crime, Lawlessness and Vandalism I noticed that they asked if the powers of the Garda under the 1977 Act can be extended to include customs officers. I would like a comprehensive reply to that question. Under a statutory instrument can the Minister decide to give that authority to customs officers? Customs officers are completely and utterly frustrated because they do not have the power to deal properly with the matter.
Contrary to popular belief the majority of drugs which are brought into this country come in tiny quantities in the bodies of travellers. These people are referred to as swallowers or stuffers. The names are self-explanatory but to put it in very polite terms they either swallow drugs which are usually kept in condoms or they stuff drugs in condoms into the body orifices. It is in this way that most of the drugs are being brought into Ireland at present. A person could be carrying, inside his or her body, a condom full of heroin, which would be a fairly large amount. The Bill states that the customs officer, "with reasonable suspicion" can detain a person. The customs officer could get a phone call from the customs people in Manchester to say a person is on a plane who they have reason to believe is carrying drugs. Under the present legislation the customs officer can try to hold the person but cannot do much about the matter.
Under this Bill we propose to give the customs officer, without warrant, the right to search the person and, if he or she considers it necessary for that purpose, to detain the person for such time as is reasonably necessary to carry out the search. That part of the Bill has caused me much concern. It gives limited power without responsibility. It does not state that there should be a check or a control. I discussed this matter with Customs and Excise officers who are frightened by what is proposed in this Bill. They wonder what they are supposed to be doing, where they will detain the people, how they will detain them, on what grounds will they detain them, what is acceptable suspicion and how will they continue to do the job. I ask the Minister to address that point. I welcome the fact that the Bill addresses this matter. Rather than being negative about this matter I made inquiries about what happens in other countries with the same problem. As I said earlier, I was involved in a number of international committees on the misuse of drugs.
I intend to propose amendments to the Bill at a later stage. I will be proposing that any legislation which gives powers to detain — I am not objecting to the right to detain; I am saying it must be controlled so that the rights of the citizen and the public are perfectly balanced and the tension which exists between the rigorous application of the law and the rights of the citizen leads to proper, progressive developments in this area — must specify what facilities there will be for detention. Where is the person to be detained? It might seem unimportant to many people here but I can guarantee that the smart lawyers will kick this out the door if proper detention facilities are not made available to enable the customs officers to carry out their job properly.
Senator Ferris asked who is responsible for detention. This point will be raised time and time again in court and these cases will be lost on technicalities if this Bill goes through as it stands. Somebody must be responsible for detention. A custodial officer responsible for the statutory rights of the detained person should be appointed to ensure that the person is given his rights and is subjected to an acceptable level of questioning and tension. This custodial officer should be answerable to the courts. The crude powers proposed in the Bill are unacceptable.
There are powers of detention in Britain also. The reason I am concerned about this matter is that, if I have this information, the people in the Department who drafted the Bill must also have it. Obviously they decided to adopt this method of approach rather than that adopted in other countries and I want to know the reason for that. This method contained in section 2 of the Bill is unacceptable and dangerous and, as far as the courts are concerned, it will be ineffective at the end of the day. In Britain detention is allowed for up to 36 hours with the proviso that there is a six hourly review. In other words, every six hours the detention of a person is reviewed and a further six hours detention approved by somebody at the level of assistant principal officer or higher. This is the type of strategy I would like to see included in this Bill, not that people can walk free. I have seen the frustration of people in the inner city of Dublin watching known criminals walking away when everyone in the community knew they are guilty. I am not prepared to tolerate that. I want to protect the rights of the ordinary citizen and I think there is a way of doing so.
I also wish to raise a point about reasonable suspicion. What is reasonable suspicion? If you believe somebody you have stopped at the airport is carrying a condom full of cocaine or heroin inside his body and you wait six hours but when the person goes to the toilet there is still no sign of any drugs, what is reasonable suspicion in that case? At what stage do you say: "I am no longer reasonably suspicious"? There could be no end to it. You could be reasonably suspicious that a person was constipated for six months. The drafting of the Bill in this regard is not acceptable. I demand that the rights of the individual be considered. The way you might have reasonable suspicion is by taking on board the fact that there have been major technological advances in drug detection. If you are going to detain somebody you need other powers also. A known fact, which I must assume is known also to the draftspeople of this Bill in the Department, is that X-ray has been used regularly to identify packages inside the body cavities of people. I stand to be corrected but, as far as I can see, under this legislation nobody has the right to X-ray somebody who is being detained. Why?
In the same way as under the drunken driving legislation a panel of doctors are available to the Garda, a panel of doctors who would examine detained persons should be available to the customs service. At the moment in terms of examination customs officers will strip somebody, and that is as far as they will go. We have not discussed strip searching and maybe we should do so. In terms of human dignity and the customs officers' sense of what they are capable of doing and where their powers extent to, they feel that they cannot go beyond stripping somebody naked and just visual examination. I know this is somewhat crude but this is how it operates so we had better know how it goes on.
A medical examination could be included in this so that a person could be examined by a doctor; for instance, his body cavities or whatever could be examined to see whether he is carrying something. That should be included in the Bill. Similarly, there should be a doctor who would take X-rays and read them. If a doctor reads an X-ray and says, "There is obviously something inside there", surely that is reasonable suspicion on which to hold that person for six hours and another six hours until we establish what that thing is.
Not only in X-ray but also in urine testing incredible advances have been made in the last couple of years in indicating even the minutest traces of substances inside the body. I want this Bill to cover that. In other words, I do not want us to go through the charade of passing this legislation to find out this time next year that the most effective way of detecting illicit substances is through X-ray or urine testing and that unfortunately we do not have the powers to require people to subject themselves to X-ray or to give urine samples. I say to the Minister that that is reasonable. Despite the lay-out of the Seanad, I am not speaking as a member of the Opposition. I am speaking as an Independent person here, giving my involvement in this, what I have learned and what I happen to know about it in those areas, and I hope my points will be taken on board because it will be a travesty if this Bill goes through as it stands at the moment. I do not know whether I should refer to some of these tests that are available. It is not necessary to become too technical but I know that the Department are aware of the existence of these extra urine tests because discussions have taken place in the Department on these tests and methods.
I could go on at some length on this area, but I am putting the Minister on notice that I will be putting forward amendments to this Bill and I want to put as positively as possible that the proposals I will be putting forward will, I believe, strengthen the Bill. If these matters are not to be taken on board I ask the Minister to let me know when replying why that is so. I was heartened to hear the Minister say at the outset that he intended to bring in some changes to the Bill, obviously on Committee Stage. I am prepared to give whatever information I have in this area to any official of the Department of Finance. I ask the Minister to take on board three things in particular, that the powers that gardaí have be extended to customs officers, that the checks and balances I have mentioned be brought into this and that we frame legislation that will be able to cope with the advances and developments in detection technology. Finally, I ask that we be conscious always of the citizen's rights as an individual which is part of our bounden duty.
