Mattie McGrath warns of spiralling drug crisis and resource gaps

I do want to support this bill this evening to thank and compliment the three deputies, Mark Ward, Denise Mitchell and Martin Kinney, for bringing forward this piece of legislation this evening. It is an honest effort by Taki Dali that has experience of what is going on on the ground. And sometimes, Minister, I wonder if the system here is capable of really, no personal criticism, but is it capable of understanding this massive, massive, massive, massive, massive problem with drugs and drug taking and drug dealing across all strathes of society, all strathes, professionals, everybody, but the misery then that brings, you know, to all these systems, and they tend to be from, yes, poorer backgrounds, as other people have said, and people that hadn't a good time in life, but often as well, people that are different, of different sectors of life fall off the different, and it starts, and it's a spiraling cycle, and I was on the hill this morning with a question on health, to, to, to, to, to appoint more drug workers in, in, in, in my own area, in Timber area, because we have, I mean, meniscus, we're 50% short on most of our, our, our, our, our mental health people, and all across a lot of strathes of, of the health situation, but, it's spiraling out of control. And the misery, and the intimidation, and the threats that families get. And other deputies have recounted, and I want to recount as well, like, families have been devastated. When I get grandparents coming in front of me, and I sell them to parents, grandparents normally tell me that their grandson has been threatened, has to immigrate to Australia. And in one case, when he came back a year after, he didn't like Australia, he came back and was intimidated to a certain degree that he took his own life. That happened more than once in my own, in my own town, at Clonmel. And we are not doing enough, but the Garda resources are just not sufficient. And the new Garda policy that they have now of, it just happened in Timber area this week, Monday morning, where we had a chief superintendent, Jerry Smart, and he was a good guy to deal with, very hands-on, but our resources were just miserable. Crossed the whole county and gathered numbers. And now that position is gone, and the new, and his name eludes me, the new chief superintendent for Timber area is now based in Clare, covering two counties. The distance alone is just, and the disconnect, and the removal of the powers that be in the connections. But I want to salute the ordinary on the ground, and the community and the limited number of drug squads for the work they do. But we have to deal on two fronts here. We have to deal with, obviously, criminality, but we have to deal with also the cause, and be compassionate about people. I have videos circulating of instances in my own town last Friday, and every day for that matter, on the street, unfortunately people are literally staggering around, wandering around, falling, abusing people, some people abusing each other, in the middle of the day. And we need people to support them to try and get them into rehab. And, you know, we must also, we have to look at free legal aid cycles as well. We must try and get at this in the schools, because that's why I believe, I'm not blaming the schools, but in the homes, but the vaping is a problem now as well, and the kind of substances that are in it. We've had incidents too in Timber area, of unfortunate incidents with vaping, so it starts off, and it's so hard to stop it when it starts, and the amount of money that's involved, and the gangs, and everyone knows, we've been looking at Drahada, and other towns over the years, and we've been warning and pleading, look, don't let this happen in other towns, and it's been replicated. And the people doing this think, and the courts are saying, we have an army now, we can't be touched. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I know, the minister is not opposed to this bill, I see, and he's talking about legislation himself, but the legislation has to be robust, and it has to be strong, and it has to be compassionate as well, but all the legislation in the world is useless if you don't have the resources, if we don't have the health workers who, alongside the other organisations, the Gardaí and others, if we don't have the social workers, if we don't have the mental health people or mental health beds and therapeutic services, we don't have them. All the billions go into the HSE, so we're in a very sad place, and it's so sad that people get entrapped, and families get entrapped, and they don't have to do it. So I hope this bill, you're accepting it, but how far it goes after that, I don't know, but I compliment the deputies and put it forward. Thank you.