I move:
That Seanad Éireann resolves that sections 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996 (No. 29 of 1996), shall continue in operation for the period ending on the 31st day of December, 2000.
Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996: Motion.
The resolution before the House asks Senators to approve the continuation in operation of those sections of the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996, which relate essentially to the detention provisions contained in that Act.
Section 11 of the Act provides that each of sections 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 would cease to be in operation at the expiry of 12 months after the date of its commencement unless a resolution has been passed by each House of the Oireachtas resolving that it shall continue in operation. The Act, including the sections which are the subject of the resolution, was brought into operation with effect from 9 September 1996. The period of operation of the sections would, therefore, have expired on 8 September 1997 unless appropriate resolutions were passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas before then.
On the previous occasion, July 1997, when a resolution to continue these sections in operation was debated in this House, the date which had been set for their expiry was 31 December 1998. This was in recognition of the fact that the sections should be kept under periodic review so that the House would have the opportunity to debate their appropriateness in combating drug related crime at suitable intervals. On this occasion it is proposed to continue them in operation for two years, that is, until 31 December 2000.
It is important that Members of the Seanad should have the opportunity to re-examine legislative provisions such as these to determine the need to retain them as weapons in the Garda's armoury. If at any stage it becomes clear that these provisions are no longer necessary, the mechanism is there for them to lapse. I regret that that time has not yet come and that we must continue to employ the detention provisions of the 1996 Act.
The effort in recent years to eliminate the menace which drugs pose to our society and to end their corrosive effects has been a concerted one on the part of the law enforcement agencies of the State. Legislation such as the 1996 Act is only part of the answer. Other aspects hinge on Garda operations. In this regard I should mention some recent initiatives, all of which have yielded positive results.
The Garda National Drugs Unit was established in 1996 with the primary function of targeting major drug traffickers. In the period January to September 1998, Garda operations and joint operations involving the Garda and the Customs authorities have yielded significant drug seizures with a value of £70 million. In addition, there have been a number of significant seizures of heroin, amphetamines, cannabis and ecstasy in the Dublin region since September.
Operation Dóchas, which began in October 1996, has as a primary objective the making of substantial inroads into the drug problem in the city through the identification of the critical areas requiring action and the development of the necessary Garda resources to implement the operation in these areas. This strategy operates in all Dublin districts and involves the deployment of in excess of 500 uniformed and plain clothes gardaí. Uniformed gardaí adopt a high profile through both foot patrols and mobile patrols and work with local communities, community leaders and individual families. Back-up is provided by specialist mobile units and other units. This operation has already resulted in an increase in the quantity of drugs seized and an increase in the arrest of those suspected of being involved in drugs. Since the commencement of Operation Dóchas, up to June 1998, over 21,000 arrests were made and 10,060 persons were charged. In addition, drugs with a value of £7 million have been seized up to 30 September 1998. To ensure its effectiveness, Operation Dóchas is subject to ongoing review, as are all Garda operations. It will continue operating and will be revised as circumstances indicate or require.
Operation Mainstreet was initiated in April 1997 with the purpose of targeting those persons engaging in the supply of controlled substances, particularly heroin, in city centre areas. The operation has proved to be very successful, combining efforts from uniformed gardaí, the divisional drugs unit and use of the CCTV system. This operation is ongoing and has resulted in over 2,000 searches and over 200 arrests up to June 1998 and in the period January to September 1998 seizures of £915,000 worth of controlled substances.
Operation Cleanstreet which commenced in December 1997 targets on-street heroin dealers in the Dublin area. Undercover gardaí visit areas where suspected drug dealing is taking place and when approached they buy drugs with marked money from the drug pusher. When the undercover garda moves away, uniformed gardaí arrest the drug pusher for the purpose of a drug search, take the marked money and whatever other drugs he or she has from the pusher. When the drug which was purchased has been analysed the pusher is then arrested and charged. A total of 12 undercover gardaí — two from each DMA Garda division — are involved in this operation, co-ordinated by the Garda National Drugs Unit. To date almost 200 arrests have been made, 101 of which have been made since 10 September 1998.
These successes are to be applauded. However, while we must not become complacent and drop our guard in the fight against drug criminality, it is only right that we should keep our response under review. In this context I want to emphasise that the Government accepts fully that as well as tackling the supply side, comprehensive measures need to be taken also on the demand side. In this context I would remind the House that a wide range of initiatives are under way in this regard, many of which arise in the context of the Government's strategy for dealing with social exclusion issues.
Returning specifically to the resolution before the House and in order to assist Senators regarding the particular sections of the 1996 Act which are the subject of the resolution, it might be beneficial if I outline the contents of those sections. Section 2 of the Act deals with powers of detention and permits the detention of a person suspected of having committed a drug trafficking offence for up to a maximum of seven days. The first 48 hours of this period may be authorised by a member of the Garda Síochána of specified rank. Thereafter, authority to detain the person up to the maximum of seven days must be obtained from a judge of the Circuit Court or District Court. In each case the authorisation may be granted where the court is satisfied that the detention is necessary for the proper investigation of the offence concerned and the investigation is being conducted diligently and expeditiously.
Section 3 involves an amendment of the Criminal Justice (Forensic Evidence) Act, 1990, to allow bodily samples to be taken in the case of a person detained under the Act. Section 4 permits the rearrest of a person previously detained under section 2 who has been released without being charged. The rearrest may only be made on the authority of a judge and only in cases where new information has come to the knowledge of the Garda Síochána since the person's release. Section 5 applies certain provisions of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, to persons detained under section 2 of the Act, so that, for example, when there are no longer reasonable grounds for suspecting a detained person of having committed an offence he or she must be released. It also covers such matters as the provision of medical attention, access to a solicitor and the destruction of records where a detained person is not prosecuted or where he or she is acquitted.
Under section 6, the Minister may make regulations providing for the attendance of an officer of Customs and Excise at, and the participation of such an officer in, the questioning of persons detained under the provisions of the Act. The position regarding such regulations is that work is proceeding on the preparation of regulations under the section which will be the subject of consultation with the Minister for Finance and the Garda authorities.
Section 11 of the Act also requires the Minister to prepare a report on the operation of the particular sections covering the period since the previous resolution. This report is required to be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas before a resolution is passed by either House and must cover the period from the date the previous report ends up to a date not more than 21 days before the resolution is moved. Such a report has already been prepared covering the period from 28 June 1997 to 30 November 1998 and was laid before both Houses last week.
The report, which is based on information received from Garda authorities, shows that the number of persons detained under section 2 during the period in question, that is between 28 June 1997 and 30 November 1998, was 708. Of these 281 persons were detained for a period not exceeding six hours, which is the initial period of detention permitted under section 2, 272 persons were detained for a period between six hours and 24 hours, 132 for a period between 24 hours and 48 hours, 13 persons for a period between 48 hours and 120 hours and ten for a period between 120 hours and 168 hours. The number of persons detained under section 2 who were released without charge was 301. A total of 407 persons were charged following detention under section 2, of whom 105 were convicted. There are 301 cases still pending before the courts and one case was withdrawn.
The Garda authorities have indicated that the provisions of the legislation have proved beneficial to the force in the investigation of drug trafficking offences. I have no doubt but that they have played their part in the fight against drug trafficking and that their continued operation is essential to the future success of that fight. I commend the resolution to the House.
The Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996, passed by the Houses over two years ago was the strongest anti-crime and anti-drugs legislation ever passed in these Houses in the 80 or so years of their existence. The draconian nature of the Act cannot be questioned but it was a necessary and proportionate response to the menace of a widespread, powerful, arrogant and evil drug trafficking industry in this country at that time. The drug barons often flouted their deeds arrogantly in view of the gardaí as they felt that the law was inadequate to deal with them and they knew that they and their advisers could turn the law into an ass if it was used against them. Their greatest comfort was that there was no political will to strengthen the law to deal with them. That lack of political will was most in evidence among a series of Fianna Fáil Ministers for Justice in the latter half of the 1980 and the early 1990s when drug dealing and trafficking developed to frightening proportions in Ireland.
In those years Ireland became one of the chief off-loading locations in Europe for drug trafficking from Asia, Central America and Latin America. There grew up a burgeoning drugs trade in practically every town and city in Ireland, and there was a huge outward trade of drugs offloaded to other destinations on the Continent. The first Minister for Justice who made a difference was Deputy Nora Owen.
She was the first Minister to show the courage, guts and, above all, imagination to deal with the frightening problem. In her two and a half years in the Department of Justice she introduced radical and sweeping changes, and the net effect of those changes, including the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Act, 1996, was to smash the intimidating power of the drug barons and to put many of them behind bars. That Act was the single piece of legislation most responsible for the progress to date.
As much more has to be done, we do not oppose the resolution to extend the lifetime of sections 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 to 31 December 2000. However, as open minded legislators we must always be mindful that such draconian provisions are regrettable and should only be upheld as long as they are absolutely necessary. The Minister of State's statistics proved that those provisions are justifiable. Over 700 people were arrested under the Act, and there was a decline in the number of people detained before additional judicial intervention was required to detain a person any longer. I would prefer if we were legislating to extend these provisions to 31 December 1999 rather than 2000. We must keep a close eye on how these figures develop over time, and the House should have the opportunity to look at them every year. If we find that the number of people being detained under the Act is declining, it would imply that the need to keep these draconian measures is also declining. We should not keep these measures on the Statute Book one day longer than we need to, and that is why there must be close and frequent monitoring.
I regret the Minister is not present as there are a number of comments I wish to make on his attitude to the Bill. The Minister frequently conveys the impression that he is more interested in punishment and vengeance than justice. One must be concerned that someone with such sweeping powers would convey such an impression.
When the Bill was introduced on Second Stage in the Dáil on 5 March 1996, the Minister, then Opposition spokesperson on Justice, stated:
An example of the manner in which the Bill has been rendered virtually unworkable can be seen in section 2, the provisions of which are intended to permit the detention of certain suspects for up to seven days. For reasons presumably known to the Minister and certainly to the Tánaiste and the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy De Rossa, a decision has been taken to the effect that a detained person must be brought before a court and afforded the opportunity to give and call evidence and make submissions before a period of detention can be extended. This will render the detention section of the Bill virtually unworkable.
That was a very serious statement. At that stage in the Minister's political career, he did not want any judicial intervention in this draconian measure relating to the detention of people for up to seven days.
Irrespective of the gravity of any crime committed, we must never lose sight of the fact that laws governing detention must protect the rights of the detained person. When the then Minister, Deputy Owen, introduced this Bill with the several interventions it contained, she was quite right to introduce the provision that continuing detention after a period of three days would have to be at the behest of a judge. If there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the person under arrest is the person who committed the crime, we have nothing to fear from judicial intervention. I seriously hope that any amendment the Minister might make to this legislation would not reflect the views he expressed on 5 March 1996.
We must be watchful in regard to this kind of legislation. Such powers of detention only exist in one other area of the corpus of criminal legislation enacted in Ireland over the past 80 years or more, namely, under the special powers legislation. I regret the Minister is not present to respond to the points I made; I do not want to detract from the Ministers of State but they are not really in a position to respond to them.
One must commend the tremendous progress made in this country in the past two and a half years in the war against drugs. The success of that battle is directly related to the corpus of legislation introduced in the latter part of 1994, in 1995 and 1996 by the former Minister for Justice, Deputy Owen. That is what broke the backs of the drug barons who derived their power through the use of intimidation and high technology and by fully and openly exploiting the weaknesses in the law. It was frightening and the matter had to be dealt with. These sweeping measures had to be taken. I am delighted they have had the intended effect but I look forward to the day when section 2 will be suspended because it has become redundant.
We will not oppose the extension of these provisions. Although I am aware that we are bound by the original legislation, it is a pity the extension must be for two years rather than one.
I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, to the House. I understand that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, is out of the jurisdiction at present. In response to Senator Connor, I do not consider it appropriate to give accolades to any one Minister or Government. Drugs have been the greatest scourge on society for the last decade and will probably be so for the next decade. Whatever the make up of Government it will face the drugs problem, as is evidenced by the need to extend these draconian measures. They are necessary because the punishment must fit the crime.
In the past 12 months the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Wallace, and the Department have introduced five Bills in the Seanad. That is a recognition of the position of this House. Furthermore, of the body of legislation that has come before the Oireachtas in the past 12 months, almost one-third has come from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The Minister and Minister of State must be complimented on their great efforts over the past 12 months which have kept me busy. It is an indication of the seriousness of their approach to their portfolios.
The sophisticated and callous manner in which the drug barons developed their trade was one of the scourges that faced the country. In places like west Cork, where there were several drug hauls, I am sure many drugs came in undetected over the past ten or 15 years. Ireland was used as a gateway to Europe with the drugs being landed in remote areas, such as west Cork, Kerry and Clare. The busiest shipping lanes in the world pass our south-west coast and I imagine that large amounts of drugs came into the country undetected. Luckily, to some extent, we were used as a stop off point and the drugs were transported to the more lucrative markets in central Europe and the UK.
There has been a large number of successful detections by the Garda and Customs in the past two to three years. There are large hauls every year and the message is getting through to international criminals that Ireland is no longer a soft touch for their trade.
Whatever legislation is brought in the drugs problem will not be solved overnight. These strong measures should be continued because they work. However, whether we like it or not, drug use is becoming more common. When I was growing up soft drugs like cannabis were not heard of in the west. Nowadays they are filtering through to young people in these areas.
The fight against drugs must be ongoing because the problem will not just go away. Although we are extending the provisions in the legislation until the end of 2000, it will have to be reviewed again. Some civil rights activists will say the provisions are too draconian but only just over 1 per cent of persons detained under the legislation were held for the maximum period of 120 to 168 hours, and roughly one-third of those held, 272 people, were released after six hours. Some 301 cases are pending before the courts and there have been 105 convictions. The follow up legislation introduced earlier this year, where people found in possession of more than £10,000 worth of drugs receive a mandatory sentence of ten years' imprisonment, will have a strong deterrent effect on drug barons who think they can rule the roost.
Much ground has been covered by the Garda and the Customs and Excise. I pay credit to previous Ministers of Justice, including Deputy Owen. The fight against drug barons and the introduction of legislation has been going on for a long time and there is no doubt other legislation will be introduced and updated in the next five years. I have no difficulty with these measures — they are harsh but they are necessary — so I commend the motion to the House and trust the decision will be unanimous. We need these provisions because in a small way we are winning battles in the war against crime. The war is not over, it is ongoing, and this motion is essential.
We have no option but to continue these provisions for the present and the near future.
Like Senator Connor, I would love to live in a society where these measures would not be necessary. Unfortunately, over the last ten to 15 years, events like the murder of Veronica Guerin showed that drug barons thought they could throw their weight around and get rid of a reporter who got in their way. They are malicious and criminally insane, and in that regard the motion is essential. I recommend it to the House.
I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, but I would liked to have seen the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform here. When this Act was going through the Dáil he rubbished certain sections and said it would be unworkable because of the in-built protections after the first 48 hours of detention; an application must be made, on the word of a Garda chief superintendent, to a Circuit Court or District Court Judge to extend the period for a further three days, and another application to extend it for another two days. The Minister has been proven wrong in his opposition to that provision. The only legislation he has introduced to contribute to the war on drugs crime was the mandatory ten year sentence for possession of £10,000 worth of any type of drugs, which is definitely unworkable, whereas the Act we introduced in Government has been shown to be workable and the Minister has given us the statistics to prove it.
At the time this Act was introduced we had a serious problem with drug trafficking, dealing, addiction and abuse. Almost three-quarters of those ending up in Mountjoy were convicted of drug-related crimes. What are the current statistics? Have we reduced drug related crime? It appears there are more drug addicts than there were two years ago; is that because they are now registered or has the position worsened? There is a lack of adequate data and information about the drug scene, whether in the community or in prisons, and about the number of addicts.
The picture on hard drugs like heroin is also unclear. A couple of years ago approximately 80 per cent of drug seizures were of cannabis and amphetamines and only a small percentage were of hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. No police force can claim to be winning the war against drugs if a majority of seizures are of soft rather than hard drugs. Again, I would like to know the up to date figures in this area but the Minister has not presented them to us.
The State had been unable to come to grips with this massive problem since 1979, when heroin first appeared in Ireland and people began to go to prison for crimes for which no one had previously been convicted. The profile of the prison population changed to one in which most prisoners were involved in some way with drug abuse. The response was to introduce tough legislation to target drug traffickers, not just arresting drug addicts. The other important legislation in the package was the Act setting up the Criminal Assets Bureau, which seized the assets of those making a killing, in every sense of the word, from drug pushing. It was the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Quinn, who introduced that Bill, so it was a combined effort of his Department and the then Department of Justice to devise the legislation targeting major drug pushers.
The third element was the establishment of the Garda drugs unit, with the function of targeting major drug traffickers. For the first time, the State focused on those in charge of the supply side, who were using others for consumption and sale. That has been a great success story in the fight against drugs and a number of other European countries are interested in the package of measures we introduced.
The measures were accompanied by greater Garda awareness. In the past I was critical of the Garda for not focusing on the major problem which was ravaging sections of our community — the proliferation of drugs. Operation Dóchas, which introduced an extra 500 gardaí to Dublin, was a tremendous help, as were the follow-up Operation Main Street and Operation Clean Street.
The other decision taken in 1996 was the establishment of the drugs task force, which recommended that £20 million be made available for projects to deal with youngsters at risk in disadvantaged areas and communities, to keep them away from drugs. Originally, the Government decided to change that from £20 million to about £2 million, but under pressure it decided to increase it to £30 million. Of course, £30 million is only a drop in the ocean in terms of what will be required and the number of applications for projects for young people at risk which have been made throughout the country.
That is the background. We had ghettoised areas which were being neglected in terms of policing and were being exploited by cynical drug pushers. We put tough legislation in place in regard to powers of arrest and detention and seizure of assets, and we established a tough enforcement unit — the national drugs unit — which I give full plaudits for its work.
In the space of those two years, there is now confidence in a community which had become antagonistic to the Garda. Gardaí can now meet ordinary members of those communities in the street and talk to them, which was not the case in the late 1980s or early 1990s when whole areas of Dublin were virtually no-go areas for the Garda. There are now no no-go areas for the Garda in Dublin city. That is a tremendous development and is the result of the package of proposals which was put in place.
I share Senator Connor's concern about changing the annual review to a two yearly review. I would much prefer if the report was made on an annual basis, which would give us the opportunity to discuss it.
We are going to have to enact the European Convention on Human Rights in our domestic law, at which time we will have problems with some of the terms in section 2, particularly the seven days detention provision. There will also be problems with some of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act, which has the same detention period, in relation to the British-Irish Agreement and the Real IRA. I would like to see a greater breakdown of the statistics to see how the legislation is working. This would allow us to see whether it is being used exclusively for the purpose intended or whether it has, as legislation tends to do, moved into other areas of enforcement.
We do not seem to have made any progress in the area of video recording of interviews and interrogations, which is only happening on a pilot basis. The report of the Barra Ó Briain committee in 1977 or 1979 recommended video and audio recording of interviews in Garda stations but, 20 years later, we are still at the pilot stage. We need to introduce that measure. There will be a great deal of pressure on us in regard to human rights issues, especially when the European Convention on Human Rights is introduced, which we must do in the context of the British-Irish Agreement within the next 19 months.
I am not fond of legislation which can be used in a repressive fashion. Whenever we go beyond the norm, in terms of introducing legislation for a particular purpose at a particular time, we must constantly keep it under regular review to ensure it is not being abused in any way, that it is still necessary and that we get it off the Statute Book as soon as possible.
I thank Senators for their contributions to the debate. The Minister of State, Deputy Mary Wallace, mentioned in her speech that it is important that measures such as those contained in the Criminal Justice (Drug Trafficking) Bill, 1996, should be kept under review and that Members of the House should have the opportunity, periodically, to receive a report on the effectiveness of the particular provisions and to express their opinions on them. Having listened to the views expressed here today, it is clear that Senators also feel it is important for us to debate these issues at suitable intervals.
We have a number of legislative provisions on our Statute Book which have as their objective the elimination of the menace of drug trafficking. All elected politicians are at one on the need to eliminate the drug disaster which is undermining society, particularly our young people. Some of these measures are aimed specifically at tackling the supply side but the demand side must also be targeted, with a view to its reduction. This involves an integrated approach to the problem, which is the approach which has been adopted.
The success of Garda operations, such as Operation Dóchas, Operation Main Street and Operation Clean Street, as well as recent successes by the Garda and the Customs Service acting jointly in making significant drug seizures, is evidence of the determined effort to eliminate the problem. I was pleased in the past, when I was Minister of State at the Department of Finance, to have brought through the Customs and Excise (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Bill, the primary function of which was to ensure there was equality of legislation to assist the Customs and Excise officers in supporting the Garda Síochána and the Army so that, as Senator O'Donovan said, there would be a co-ordinated and co-operative effort to protect our coast, airports, sea ports and any other locations which drug barons could use to get drugs into the country.
Senator O'Connor was critical of the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue. The advantage of being in Government is that the most up-to-date information is always available to us — or, at least, it should be — but the Opposition does not always have such up-to-date information, in the interests of security, which can place it at a disadvantage.
As I said, the solution of the problem requires an integrated approach of which legislation is one element. The success of the 1996 Act can be gauged from the report on its operation between the 28 June 1997 and 30 November 1998, which has already been laid before this House. The report shows that, during the period in question, 105 persons were convicted in the courts and a further 301 cases are still pending. From the information in that report, based on material provided by the Garda, it is clear the Act has been used successfully in securing convictions against persons trafficking in drugs.
Regrettable as such measures may appear to be, they are necessary if we are serious about ridding ourselves of the destructive potential posed by drug traffickers. If, and when, the threat they pose is eliminated, the provisions of the 1996 Act will no longer be necessary. As I said earlier, the mechanism exists for these particular sections to expire.
The Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, my Government colleague, regrets he cannot be here today. He is, as Senator O'Donovan said, out of the jurisdiction on very important national business. He would love to have been here to answer any questions but both Minister of State, Deputy Mary Wallace, and I were pleased to be here on his behalf. I thank Senators for their co-operation. I wish everyone a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a very successful new year.
Question put and agreed to.
Sitting suspended at 3.50 p.m. and resumed at 4.30 p.m.