To cut that short, although the preventive and remedial aspects of the matter are interlocked, the situation is that the Minister for Justice devolves all responsibility for dealing with the problem on the Minister for Health. While I can understand that the more important remedial measures belong to the sphere of the Minister for Health there is also need for consideration of the preventive side of the problem. I humbly suggest that a Minister who thinks the problem does not exist could not be expected to understand how grave the problem is, even if it is but beginning to be a social problem in Dublin. Someone has properly said that in other countries and societies people denied that the problem could attack them. They ignored the problem until it had reached large proportions when real emergency measures had to be taken at that stage. We may avoid that situation by exercising commonsense and taking steps now to deal with it.
Even the Minister for Justice admits that illegal traffic in drugs will increase. If that is his estimate of the position it behoves all of us to examine what measures we should take. The Minister for Health has set up a committee and I want to give the impression that I get from his reply on the matter. I asked the Minister whether his Department was giving any special consideration to the growing practice of drug-taking among young people and if he would outline any special steps he intends to take to make drugs less easily available. The kernel of his reply to that was:
As I indicated in reply to previous questions, I propose to make the unauthorised possession of certain drugs liable to abuse, a punishable offence and I hope to incorporate the necessary statutory provision in the legislation for the improvement of the Health Services which, as I have previously indicated, will be introduced in the present session.
I get the impression that the Minister for Health is prone to take—even he—a purely punitive attitude towards this problem. There are several schools of thought in that regard, as I have learned. We can regard drug addicts as delinquents or we let them fall into the category of patients, which is a description which I am inclined to adopt myself. I think a person who is falling into the practice of drug-taking is a person who must be regarded in much the same way as an alcoholic must be regarded, as suffering from a disease in that sense. It is not so long ago since we refused to recognise that alcoholism was, in fact, a disease or that citizens in the grip of alcoholism were seriously ill. It was said that this was part of our social pattern. It is not so long ago since people condemned to mental homes were regarded as pariahs of society and outside the pale of ordinary human life. It is not so long ago since tubercular patients were regarded as being the victims of some divine curse on them.
I think the kernel of our sincerity in approaching the problem of drug-taking, if we wish to tackle it seriously, must be the establishment in Dublin of a specialised clinic to deal with the problem. There are clinics in London and if we do nothing about it we can be sure that the young people who are caught up in this tragic business will gravitate to London and be dealt with there in some fashion. Any of us who consider that we have an obligation to our own citizens must believe that we should do something at home for them. The British authorities have done a great deal in at least looking into the situation and there have been several inter-departmental committees of the British House of Commons sitting on the problem. There was the Brain Committee in 1965. They brought in a report two years later and a great deal of their material could be considered to see what we could do here. But I believe we must have this specialised clinic in Dublin with all necessary medical expertise it would call for. So far as I am aware—and again I would say that my figures are subject to all the limitations of individual inquiries—I should imagine that in Dublin there is something in the region of 200 people who are victims of this particular habit. I say we have an obligation to do something for these young people and their families who must be tortured by the problem of having sons or daughters caught up in this desperate business.
One failing we have in this matter is that some of the people to whom I have talked took up this drug habit in London and the peculiar thing is that many of them had gone to London at a very early age. Some of those to whom I spoke emigrated at the age of 16. Therefore, this uncovers the real problem of young people leaving the country at a very early age and going into an alien environment. What we see happening in this area may be happening in other areas also. However, it would appear that these young people took up the habit on leaving this country for London at a very early age. I do not know what solution could be suggested but certainly this is one aspect of the problem.
In this connection, one of the young men to whom I spoke said that he had heard it mentioned in London—I wish to say that this is subject to limitation and caution; it is not a scientific figure but at least it was mentioned in the course of my inquiries and I see no danger in referring to it—that 25 per cent of the young people who were called addicts were, in fact, of Irish background. This figure may not be correct but, at any rate, it suggests that a large number of those people in London who are suffering from drug addiction are citizens of this country.
These are some of the facts that have come to my notice in the short time that I have been looking at the problem. The Minister says that he is setting up a work party to advise on this matter. This is a good thing but I should like to ask the Minister if the party will work within the existing system, which is one of neglect of this problem. It is necessary to know exactly who will be on this committee. It is important that there should be representatives of young people so that it will not become a group who do not understand this problem from the point of view of youth.
In Belfast, as we know, the authorities have contacted all youth organisations asking them for submissions and for any help that they can give to the official committee in that part of the country. Indeed, in Belfast, there is a much more honest and open approach to the problem than there has as yet been here in Dublin. We cannot say which city has the more serious problem but there is no doubt that the problem in Dublin is fast approaching a situation that is at least as serious as that obtaining in Belfast. This is not scaremongering. There has been an increase in the number of court cases dealing with this matter during the past few months.
One factor that will hamper any measures we take towards solving this problem will be the inadequacy of our probation service. Recently, we asked the responsible Minister what the extent of our probation service is in the country—and remember a probation service is a skilled probation service with people trained in sociology—and we were informed that there are seven full-time officials for Dublin and none for the rest of the country. Therefore, this work party that the Minister is asking to help him on this problem face a situation where the full-time probation service for the whole country amounts to seven men in Dublin; for the rest, we must depend on the voluntary organisations.
I would suggest that the first problem the Minister should look at is the dreadfully inadequate position of the probation service. Most of the workers in the clinics in London that I have read about work in very close unity and day to day contact with the probation service and, in fact, the job of a probation officer when dealing with one of these people is to befriend him and to ensure that the person is able to keep in contact with him.
We should get it out of our heads that punishment alone in the form of sentences will not solve the problem. We must have remedial measures. We must put a stop to whatever illegal traffic is going on. This traffic, to my knowledge, has not, as yet, reached commercial proportions. The emphasis should be on the remedial clinic aspect. Whatever is done from the point of view of prevention must call for a wider probation service than we have at present.
My only excuse for raising this matter here is that this habit is a destroyer of youth and many people in this House, regardless of political differences, will agree on the importance of our youth and anything that can ruin—"ruin" is not too strong a word—a young person's career and their whole grip on life must be effectively tackled. It cannot be treated as being something of no consequence or, to use the words of the Minister for Justice, "something that the newspapers got up". Such an attitude in dealing with a problem of this kind is not responsible. Those public representatives and members of the clergy who have highlighted this problem have, in my opinion, spoken from the most responsible motives.
If there is irresponsibility in this matter it is on the side of those who keep their mouths closed. I should hope that the Minister for Health means business and I hope that the setting up of this committee will lead to the establishment here in Dublin of a clinic of the type that I mentioned. This clinic would be the centrepiece of any meaningful campaign to eradicate this habit among our young people. The State has an obligation to help these people. We cannot take the easy way out and export the problem to Britain even if the problem did begin in London to where so many of our young emigrants go. The lives of these people will be ruined. I am pressing the Minister to take action in dealing with this problem.
