asked the Minister for Justice the amount, in cash terms on the retail market, of drugs seized by the Drug Squad in each of the past three years.

2.

asked the Minister for Justice the number of convictions for illicit drug-taking and illicit drug possession in each of the past three calendar years for which figures are available.

With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions 1 and 2 together.

Many of the drugs in question are not sold commercially at all and no estimate in terms of retail market value is available. The Garda authorities state that the estimated current value in the illicit trade of drugs seized in the State in 1978 and 1979 were £174,000 and £1,400,000 respectively and that the provisional figure for 1980 is £2,200,000. I should explain that the figure for 1979 includes an amount of £900,000 in respect of a single seizure of drugs and that the figure for 1980 includes an amount of £1,300,000 also in respect of a single seizure.

There is no offence known as "illicit drug taking". Statistics of drug offences are contained in the Annual Reports on Crime of the Commissioner, Garda Síochána, copies of which are available in the Oireachtas Library. The latest published report is in respect of the year 1979. The reports show that numbers of convictions for unlawful possession of drugs in 1977, 1978 and 1979 were 157, 222 and 385 respectively.