Apologies have been received from Deputy Máire Devine and Senators Evanne Ní Chuilinn and Nicole Ryan.

I will read a note on privilege. I remind members and witnesses of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members of the committee attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. This is due to the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit. In this regard, I ask any members participating via Microsoft Teams to make it known that they are on the Leinster House campus.

Everyone is very welcome. I am delighted to open the 17th public meeting of the joint committee. This is our first meeting on legal issues, to discuss the criminal justice and public health perspectives on legal and policy responses to drug use. I welcome our witnesses. From the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, I welcome Ms Rachel Woods, assistant secretary, head of criminal justice policy, and Ms Mary O'Regan, principal officer, criminal justice policy. From An Garda Síochána, I welcome assistant Commissioner Angela Willis, organised and serious crime, and detective chief superintendent Séamus Boland, head of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau. From the Department of Health, I welcome Mr. David Leach, assistant secretary, and Dr. Eamon Keenan, national clinical lead for HSE addiction services. They are all very welcome.

Opening statements were circulated to members in advance. Witnesses will each have five minutes for their opening statements to allow plenty of time for questions and answers for members if necessary.

If they have any more detailed information, they can send it to the clerk to the committee and we will circulate it to members afterwards. We will have members coming in and out consistently because of the nature of the job so do not read anything into that.

I call the witnesses to deliver their opening statements.

I thank the committee for inviting me to speak here today. I am the head of the criminal justice policy function within the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.

The Department is fully committed to reducing the direct and indirect harms caused to society by illicit drug use through appropriate diversion and enforcement measures. The three main policy objectives we are seeking to achieve in this area are tackling organised crime, minimising the harms caused to those with addiction issues and diverting people from involvement in crime and illicit drug-related activity. Work is ongoing in relation to all three areas.

I am grateful for the opportunity to share with the committee some of the work we have undertaken in relation to the Government’s health-led approach to drugs use, as set out in the national drugs strategy 2017 to 2025. That strategy recognised the need for balanced, health-led approaches to reducing the harm that illicit drug use can cause to individuals, families, and communities. It advocates for a two-pronged response that reduces both access to illicit drugs and the number of people criminalised by possession for personal use.

While supporting vulnerable people who use drugs, it is also strengthens enforcement measures against the illegal supply of drugs. Officials from the Department engaged with the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use to consider the legislative, policy and operational changes the State could make to significantly reduce the harmful impacts of illicit drugs on individuals, families, communities and wider society. Along with colleagues in the Department of Health we have devised a health diversion scheme for individuals in possession of drugs for personal use, within the existing legal framework.

While unauthorised possession of controlled drugs will remain illegal, the scheme will facilitate members of An Garda Síochána to connect participants with appropriate health services. This will divert suitable individuals away from criminal sanctions, instead offering them a pathway towards treatment and recovery.

The outstanding legal and operational arrangements for the scheme are currently being finalised and it is anticipated that the scheme will become operational in the early part of this year.

As a key priority of the national drugs strategy, the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration and the Department of Health also commissioned an independent review of the Dublin Drug Treatment Court. The final evaluation is now complete, and its findings are currently under consideration, with ongoing engagement with the Courts Service and other stakeholders.

The Department is working to implement the recommendations of the high-level task force considering the mental health and addiction challenges of those interacting with the criminal justice system. A key recent development is the community access response team, known as CAST, a partnership pilot between An Garda Síochána and HSE mid-west community healthcare services. The initiative assists people who come into contact with law enforcement while experiencing situational trauma or a mental health crisis, many of whom also experience addiction issues, and aims to divert them away from criminal sanctions and towards suitable care pathways. Other recommendations of the task force are also being progressed.

The Government’s ambition is that the next national drugs strategy will support a society where: the use of drugs is decreased; drug-related harms are reduced; and recovery from drug dependency is supported. The draft national drugs strategy 2026-2029 was published earlier this month by the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Jennifer Murnane O’Connor, and I understand that her Department plans to commence a public consultation on the draft strategy shortly.

I thank the committee for its time today. My colleague Ms Mary O’Regan and I are happy to answer questions.

I thank the committee for the invitation to address it on behalf of the Garda Commissioner. I am the assistant commissioner with organisational responsibility for tackling organised and serious crime. I am accompanied by my colleague detective chief superintendent Séamus Boland, who is the head of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau. I have been a member of An Garda Síochána for over 35 years and have worked in the drugs area at various levels throughout my career. I worked in the north central divisional drug unit based in Store Street Garda station during the 1990s. More recently, I was head of bureau at the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. I have witnessed the devastation caused to families and communities through illicit drug supply and addiction throughout my career. Like so many of my colleagues across the organisation, I have seen first hand, and investigated the violence arising directly as a consequence of the illicit drug trade, up to and including drug-related organised crime murders. Today, my focus is on ensuring that our valuable resources are directed towards targeting the structures and supply chains of those criminal networks who facilitate drug trafficking.

The functions of An Garda Síochána are set out in section 9 of the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024. Our functions include the provision of a policing and security service across the State; to preserve peace and public order; to protect life and property; to protect and vindicate the human rights of each individual; to protect the security of the State; to prevent crime; to prevent harm to individuals, in particular, individuals who are vulnerable or at risk; to bring criminals to justice; to protect and support victims of crime; and to regulate and control road traffic to improve road safety. I set out each of the objectives as laid out in the legislation because the impact of the illegal drug trade and the consumption of illicit drugs is a unique crime, which spans all of the listed functions. The illicit drug trade consumes valuable Garda resources and impacts negatively on communities. This is not a victimless crime. An Garda Síochána enforce the law as enacted by the Oireachtas. We are committed to upholding the law to ensure that Ireland remains a safe and peaceful country.

A significant amount of our focus in the organised crime area is on the disruption and dismantling of criminal organisations responsible for importation routes, ensuring that Ireland is a hostile environment for global drug trafficking networks to operate within. This includes targeting of, not only those who direct such activities, but the facilitators and enablers who operate within the legitimate economy. Those who, through corrupt practices, enhance the capabilities of criminal organisations. We implement a multi-agency approach to enforcement, working collaboratively with our domestic law enforcement partners, the Revenue customs service, and the Criminal Assets Bureau as well as international law enforcement agencies.

Drug trafficking remains a priority as defined by the Council of the European Union for the 2026 to 2029 period, driven by the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats, EMPACT. The Government has enacted significant legislation in this jurisdiction, enabling us in our efforts to disrupt and dismantle criminal networks. In particular, I highlight the organised crime legislation enacted in the Criminal Justice Act 2007 along with the use of the Special Criminal Court for trials associated with significant organised crime prosecutions. Our focus continues to be on network disruption, targeting high-value targets, denying, and depriving criminals of their ill-gotten gains, in whatever format such assets may be held.

As has been stated previously, An Garda Síochána fully support the Government’s policy on drugs use and we will continue to work with all agencies and Government Departments to implement the new national drug strategy. The committee will be aware that we participated in the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use and fully support the recommendations as outlined in the final report. We adopt a human rights-based and humane approach to our engagement with vulnerable people, impacted by addiction, particularly drug addiction. Our focus is not the prosecution of those addicted to controlled drugs, but on disrupting drug trafficking supply lines and dismantling the transnational organised criminal groups involved in the illicit drugs trade.

We co-ordinate our disruption activities nationally under Operation Tara, our proactive national strategy to enhance the organisations capacity to disrupt, dismantle and prosecute drug trafficking networks that are impacting on our communities, and to ensure we are keeping people safe.

While the Garda national drugs and organised crime bureau is tasked with the disruption and dismantling of transnational drug trafficking networks, we also have divisional drug units in every part of the country focussed on street- level drug suppliers who inflict so much visible harm in our communities. In the ten years since the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau was established, illicit drugs with an estimated street sale value of €756 million have been seized, in addition to over €36 million in cash and 171 lethal firearms.

Drugs-related intimidation is a priority for An Garda Síochána, with significant effort in progress to identify the scale of the issue, the perpetrators involved, supporting victims and ensuring the policing response is adequate. An Garda Síochána is often at the forefront in supporting families in such situations. We have developed a strategy to counter drug related intimidation, which involves collaboration with external partners and links into the Department of Health’s drug-related intimidation and violence engagement, DRIVE, project. We can provide further details of our ongoing work in this area, if required.

An Garda Síochána continues to support our partners in a number of initiatives designed to prevent drugs harm including: the early warning emerging trends committee; the festival back-of-house monitoring programme; the supervised injecting facilities; and the health referral scheme.

An Garda Síochána are fully supportive of the diversion of persons from the criminal justice system, where appropriate. Our organisation has significant experience in this area through the implementation of the Garda youth diversion programme for children under 18 years, and the adult caution scheme which is available for a range of summary offences including the possession of cannabis for personal use.

Regrettably, illicit drug consumption is becoming normalised across many areas of society with ever increasing demand. This, in turn, has resulted in greater profits for criminal organisations, leading to an increase in threats and intimidation as violent criminals seek to maintain control over their illicit business.

This is a supply versus demand industry that is nourished through consumption. Unfortunately, many people who consume illegal drugs are disconnected from the local and global devastation and violence that results from consumption. An Garda Síochána will continue with our efforts in the law enforcement environment however, the true power to impact on the issue rests in education, prevention and the personal decisions made by the citizens of this State. We welcome the questions of members and of course we will provide the committee with any additional information it may require to progress its important work.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the opportunity to attend today's meeting. I am joined by my colleague Professor Eamon Keenan, national clinical lead for HSE addiction services and clinical professor in addiction studies at Trinity College, Dublin. The programme for Government, Securing Ireland's Future, reaffirms the Government's commitment to a health-led approach to drugs use, and it is the role of the Department of Health to provide leadership in delivering on this commitment. Under the previous national drugs strategy, there has been significant progress in this regard. An independent evaluation of the strategy noted that notable progress had been made in advancing a health-led approach, particularly through the expansion of harm reduction initiatives. These initiatives are positioned as a central component of the strategy, with a focus on reducing the adverse health and social impacts of drug use. The recently published draft strategy for 2026 to 2029 marks a further evolution of the health-led approach, by delivering an integrated, equitable and evidence-based response to drug and harmful alcohol use.

Investment continues into the provision of drug and alcohol services. In addition to the annual funding provided by the Department of Health for drug services of over €170 million, budget 2026 included funding of over €6 million for several initiatives including, increased access to treatment for opioid dependence, including buprenorphine; strengthening workforce development in the drugs sector; enhanced services for under-served populations and; providing an additional 30 residential treatment beds for people with complex medical needs and those who are homeless.

The increased investment in drug services is reflected in the national drug treatment reporting system's data for 2024 published by the Health Research Board. This shows a record figure of almost 13,300 cases treated for problem drug use. This represents a 50% increase in the capacity of treatment places since 2017 and reflects the ongoing investment in expanding services. A further 8,750 cases were treated for problem alcohol use, the highest annual figure for over a decade. Significantly, 5,500 cases reported both drug and alcohol use, highlighting the importance of integrated responses.

There is a strong association between harmful drug use and homelessness. The Department and the HSE recently allocated extra funding of €1.9 million to the community care facility for people who are homeless run by Dublin Simon Community at Usher's Island. With 75 beds now open, the facility is expected to deliver approximately 1,000 treatment episodes per annum. Services provided at the facility include alcohol and benzodiazepine detox and stabilisation, blood-borne virus stabilisation and low-threshold addiction recovery. Total annual investment by the Department of Health and the HSE in the facility is now €10.4 million. In December 2024, Merchants Quay Ireland opened the country's first supervised injection facility, for a pilot period of 18 months. As of November 2025, the service assisted 1,500 clients who have made over 17,000 visits. Over 270 non-fatal overdoses have been treated in the facility. An interim evaluation of the facility highlighted positive findings in relation to the qualitative experience of those accessing the service, the success of the service in accessing those with high levels of vulnerability, no increase in frequency of injecting behaviour, the promotion of safer injecting practices, and the number of overdose and medical interventions performed in the facility. A separate academic paper identified a reduction in drug use and drug-related litter in the local area, and increased levels of community engagement.

The programme for Government commits to increase the availability of naloxone used to reverse opioid overdose and to train more people to administer the drug. During 2025, the HSE supplied 4,571 units of naloxone to services nationwide and over 3,000 people have availed of opioid overdose awareness and naloxone administration training. There were 412 administrations of naloxone recorded in 2025, equating to 16 lives saved.

The Department of Health has funded and supported the development of the DRIVE project to combat drug-related intimidation and violence and continues to provide recurring annual funding of €250,000. The Department is committed to providing harm-reduction services and early warning and emergency responses, to novel drugs and emerging trends. The Department has provided additional funding to the HSE for harm-reduction initiatives to provide a rapid response to the threat of synthetic drugs, including a wastewater drug surveillance programme and an early warning programme in acute hospital settings during 2026. The HSE Safer Nightlife programme, running since 2022, extends the health-led response to drug use in the night-time economy, including free and anonymous back-of-house drug checking at selected events. This programme identifies drugs in circulation and provides vital information to help reduce harms for people who use drugs. In November 2023, a health-led approach was integral to the response to the emergence of a powerful synthetic opioid in the drug market. This outbreak resulted in 57 overdoses over a period of five days in Dublin and a further 20 overdoses occurring during a second outbreak in Cork. The response, led by the HSE and supported by An Garda Síochána and other stakeholders, ensured the harms from this drug were minimised.

Considerable progress has been made toward implementing the health diversion scheme. The Minister of State with responsibility for public health, well-being and the national drugs strategy, and the Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, have agreed that the scheme will commence on an administrative basis. The scheme will refer individuals found in possession of drugs for personal use to health services and avoid a criminal prosecution. It is important to say that drug possession will remain illegal but people with illicit drugs for personal use would be afforded, first and foremost, the opportunity to engage voluntarily with healthcare services. The operational details of the scheme are being finalised by An Garda Síochána.

The HSE has in place a regional network of ten healthcare practitioners, nine whole-time equivalents, WTEs, who are ready to provide a screening and health intervention, known as SAOR, once An Garda Síochána commences referrals. SAOR uses a short, person-centred approach based on motivational interviewing to have a conversation with an individual about their drug or alcohol use and to refer those presenting with more complex needs to specialist services. SAOR can be delivered online or in person. Brief interventions have been shown to be effective in initiating change in consumption for people with mild to moderate alcohol or drug problems and in helping people with more significant difficulties to access specialised treatment services. I thank members for their attention. We are happy to answer any questions they might have.

I thank Mr. Leach. It is over to the members now.

I thank everyone for their contribution. I will do my best to ask my questions in order of relevance. This one is specifically for An Garda Síochána on what is being called a health-led response but, in my view and that of many others, is a police-led response. In terms of the discretion, if an individual is found with a substance, is it correct that the individual has to admit the offence before they know whether they will be diverted?

I thank the Senator for the question. The proposal of which we in An Garda Síochána are very supportive will involve engaging with the person who has been found in possession of a quantity of a controlled substance that we believe is for their own personal use. The health diversion scheme is a non-sanctioned outcome. They would have to acknowledge what the substance is but then, while we would keep a record of that engagement with the person, once they consent to be diverted to the health intervention and to the SAOR team, that is it over from the perspective of An Garda Síochána. There is no further engagement then in relation to the substance.

However, they do not know if they are going to be diverted. They are required to self-incriminate basically and say, "Yes, I am in possession of an illegal substance and it is for my own personal use." It is only after that then that the arresting garda or the garda who found the person with the substance can offer the diversion. The garda who found the person to be in possession of the substance does not have discretion in that moment as to whether that person will be given a health-led diversion because it is based on discretion. Some people will not. It is not automatic that a person will go through the SAOR process, even if they admit the offence.

It will be automatic on the first occasion.

For everybody.

Yes, on the first occasion they are encountered with controlled drugs. It is not a discretionary piece. We have put a lot of effort into making sure that we are supporting members on the ground in that decision-making process. They are not being asked to use their discretion. The policy will be very clear that on the first occasion a health referral will be made, subject to the individual agreeing to having that referral made. They have to agree then that we will provide their information to the Department.

Do grades of discretion come in on occasion two and three as to whether a person will be provided with an adult caution or are we saying that on the second time an adult caution will be automatically given? At what point does discretion kick in?

It will all depend on the individual circumstances. It will depend on the history of the individual.

The policy is not finalised just yet. I am giving the committee the broad outline of what it might look like. On the first occasion, as a blanket they will be referred. That is it for all drug types. On the second occasion, the adult caution at present provides for an adult caution in relation to cannabis use. It does not provide it in relation to other drug substances. That is something that can be revisited down the line. At present, that is the way it is laid out.

I am enthused when I hear that An Garda Síochána supports the finding of the citizens' assembly's recommendations. In practice, what we have and what the Garda has to do, whether that is on instruction from justice, it is not a health-led approach. If at any time all of sudden someone can be a criminal for the thing that we are saying is a health issue, it is remaining a criminal response. If I have an addiction, the likelihood of me not having that addiction the next week when I encounter a garda again is unfair, unrealistic and not a health-led approach. It is not understanding the nature of addiction or trauma. If it can go from it being a caution or potentially later a conviction if it continues, that does not understand what the citizens' assembly recommended in terms of decriminalisation of all substances. There is a mismatch in the policy. I understand that people are dealing with what they can in their own Departments.

If we are accepting that we can deal with something on an administrative basis even on the first port of call when someone gets caught for the first time with something in their pocket, we have shown that an administrative sanction can be used that point, so we have proved that administrative sanction can be used. Why do we continue to need to escalate it to a criminal sanction as it goes on? The arguments early on were that we cannot be Portugal because we are common law. We are showing that something administrative is happening. It undoes that conversation in a way. Why do we need section 3? Why do we need stop and search if we are proving that it can be dealt with in administrative way?

We cannot uncouple the two things. The garda will interact with the person who is found in possession of a substance for their own personal use. They will be offered the opportunity to have a health-led intervention. The health-led piece has to kick in at that point. We would not anticipate that we would be meeting that same person in an hour's time because they would have been referred on. The people are in place, and it is ready to go.

The next week that person is not going to be out of addiction. Just because they have had a health appointment does not mean that the substance use ends. If there is the threat of criminal sanction or increased criminal sanction or adult caution, prohibition would have worked because there is already the threat of prison. People are still caught in cycles of drug use, which some are harmful, and some are not. It is not a health-led approach. It is still a police-led response and prohibitionist response. It still does not take in the fact that addiction and drug use are complex. It is not that I am criticising what the witnesses are saying is being put in place, but there is something we have to accept. We need to stop calling it one thing when it is another thing because it is quite misleading. The Department of Health will say it does not have control over the justice administration, but the drugs Act is still partly within the Department of Health. The citizens' assembly did not recommend what is being offered here. It is wrong for us to keep portraying it as a health-led response when it is still a criminal response.

I thank the Senator. We have to move on.

I have a question for the assistant commissioner. I thank all the witnesses for their contributions. Ms Willis mentioned disrupting supply lines. That is all important work. That was mentioned in the international context. Disrupting supply lines on the ground in our local communities is equally as important. There is a big problem with e-bikes, scooters and scramblers. It is all part of that whole milieu. There seems to be a contradiction with what the former Commissioner, Drew Harris, said at the justice committee. He said it was possible for those people to be pursued, but middle management of An Garda Síochána told me that they do not want to do that and they are not getting involved in pursuits. Every circumstance is not ideal for that, but there are circumstances where it could be done and done effectively. The London Metropolitan Police service has a particular way of dealing with those situations. Denying the supply of drugs is the first step to preventing addiction. There seems to be mixed messages coming from An Garda Síochána in terms of pursuit. Will Ms Willis comment on that?

I thank the Deputy for his question. An Garda Síochána is not the sole answer to addiction or the whole drug problem. In relation to pursuit of e-bikes and e-scooters, there are significant complexities, which the Deputy would be aware of, relating to public safety in that space. I am aware of what the Metropolitan Police is doing in certain circumstances around certain types of behaviour. It is more targeted towards robberies, snatching phones and that kind of behaviour. The Commissioner, Justin Kelly, has stated publicly that we are currently looking at all the range of options that might be available to us in An Garda Síochána to tackle this issue. We recognise that e-bikes, e-scooters and the behaviour of some people who use them is problematic.

We are looking at all the options, including pursuit. If we are to engage in pursuit, there are many other issues that we need to take into account. For example, it is not just the person who might be on the e-scooter or e-bike. It is the general public. We police for all the community, not just the target of a particular operation. There is also the safety of our own members and the safety of the person who is on that scooter or bicycle. Whatever direction we take and if we decide we are going to pursue them and engage in pursuits, and we do engage in pursuits, it has to be within the realm of safety. I am talking more about cars when we engage in pursuits. It is not to say that we do not engage in pursuit. We will engage in safe pursuit. At the minute, we are looking at other options around that. We are looking at international practice as well to see what other countries are doing in this space.

The Deputy will be aware that there is consideration around new legislation. Again, we will implement the legislation that is made available to us. We recognise that this is a significant problem in some areas. We have engaged in lots of operations where we have seized scooters. Out in the Dublin metropolitan region, DMR, west, members might be aware from media reports last week that there were significant operations. There were significant amounts of e-scooters and e-bikes seized. These operations are ongoing. When I had responsibility for Dublin, we were constantly involved in doing operations and trying to target the people who were causing the most harm and seizing the scooters. In circumstances where we can dispose them, we are doing that as well and not returning them.

I thank the witnesses for being here and the work they are doing. The Garda get the blunt edge of this problem and challenge. It is a society wide challenge. One of things that resonated with me from the opening statement is how Ms Willis has personally witnessed the change in drug use in our society, the social acceptance of it and the absolute disconnect between people who are consuming casually and socially and the devastation that it is causing individuals, families and communities.

I could get into the section 3 debate, as I am interested in it, but I will come back to it. It was also very clearly called out that the Garda strategy is to try to disrupt the supply and distribution. That makes sense. Some €750 million worth of drug seizures is a significant amount. I have heard it said, anecdotally, that it is probably about 10% of the market value, so we are talking about €7.5 billion. That is an enormous value in terms of illicit drugs in our society.

I have two questions to start with for the Department of Health. I am really interested in understanding the prevention strategy from the Department. The ring-fenced funding for prevention is inadequate. That is not to say that we should be taking the funding from harm reduction or any of the other areas, but we should have equal and additional funding for prevention. We have had schoolteachers and the unions representing them, youth services and a lot of stakeholders before the committee. I would like to understand why the Department is not prioritising greater funding for prevention.

I would also like to understand the approach from the Department of justice. Its focus is on reducing the harm of illicit drugs. There is a cohort of roughly 5,000 people incarcerated in our prisons, 70% of whom are suffering from an addiction. We heard that there are places for 49 inmates to participate in addiction and drug recovery in Mountjoy Prison. There is no intensive programme for women at all. I would like to hear a response to those two questions. What is being done to adequately address the pervasive addiction challenge in prisons and what are we going to do to increase prevention?

I will ask Dr. Keenan to come in on the prevention issue. We fund the HSE to conduct prevention campaigns, in particular in education settings. Often when I discuss prevention with people, perhaps of my own generation and around it, those of us who have children would love to see widespread communications campaigns around advising people. Going back to the 1980s, we had the just say no campaign on drugs but that is kind of naive, if the Senator knows what I am saying.

Yes.

We know from our own experience of public health campaigns in various ways that just telling people not to do something does not mean they will not take it. While we would all love to see something big and flashy, it would possibly be counterproductive in relation to the population we are seeking to target.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Leach. I suppose my question is what we are going to do about that.

Dr. Keenan might speak about that. We do fund work. I agree with Senator Fitzpatrick that we need to do more. Hopefully, under the new drugs strategy, we will advance that agenda.

There was already a meeting with the prevention experts prior to this committee meeting. To reframe that, from a prevention and public health perspective, we recognise that there are three types of prevention. There is primary prevention, which focuses on stopping problems before they start. That is in the context of substance use. That is around comprehensive education, awareness and putting in place policy measures that will delay or prevent that initiation.

Then there is secondary prevention, which involves early detection and providing support to prevent escalation. For example, that is preventing somebody from using occasionally going to regular use.

Then there is tertiary prevention, which addresses existing problems through treatment and recovery supports. That aims to reduce the harms, prevent relapse and minimise long-term impacts. Our previous strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery, had a comprehensive evaluation, which was published. There were a lot of stakeholder consultations around the strategy. It is fair to say that a key recommendation from both of those was the requirement to strengthen prevention in the next strategy.

The draft drugs strategy was circulated to members. When they go through it, they will see we have specifically identified prevention as an area that requires additional resources and input. That is at school level - secondary level - and tertiary level and is really putting prevention firmly on the agenda for the Government for services as part of the next strategy. I hope the consultation process we have engaged in on the new strategy reinforces our desire to have prevention as a key element of the next strategy.

Gabhaim buíochas le Dr. Keenan.

I acknowledge that there are significant issues in the Prison Service with overcrowding at the moment, which are hugely impacting our ability to provide services and treatment. The Department's approach starts with trying to divert people with addiction and mental health issues from the Prison Service in the first place. We have a number of different pathways and programmes for that, starting with the youth justice approach where we are increasing funding to try to prevent young people becoming involved in the criminal justice system at all. There are also pathways for diversion, with probation at the court stage, pre-conviction and post-conviction, to try to get people into treatment. There are various pathways to divert from the Prison Service. The focus is very much on trying to improve and increase all of those provisions and to increase funding into all of those areas. Once people end up within the prison system, there are other interventions. I will ask my colleague, Ms O'Regan, to outline some of those. I acknowledge the overcrowding in prisons.

Overcrowding is one element and it is absolutely a challenge but, regardless of the overcrowding, the evidence we have received is that there are wholly inadequate resources for people who are incarcerated to access addiction services.

There has obviously been a huge focus on trying to improve health within prisons over the last while, whether it is to do with addiction or mental health, and sometimes both are combined. I am sorry, as I have a cold and my voice is gone. I am very much aware that Merchants Quay Ireland provides a service. I know its representatives were in with the committee a couple of weeks ago. I think Senator Fitzpatrick is specifically mentioning the treatment and recovery programme, TARP, in that regard.

That is right.

There is a huge demand for the services no matter how many places are provided, so I think we are always going to see an excess of demand relative to the places provided.

There has been increased investment in health generally and in the welfare of prisoners over the last while. My understanding was that the Merchants Quay Ireland service to the prisons was evaluated. I suspect that the evaluation will tell us where the need is and what more needs to be done. It is an evolving area in terms of the care generally that we are providing to people and how they might deal with their addiction. There are many other services available within prisons that also deal with addiction in other ways. TARP is just one of those.

We are aware of that. I thank Ms O'Regan. I see I am out of time. A vote has also been called in the Seanad. I will come back afterwards.

I thank all the witnesses for coming in today. We are all very interested in this area. We have seen the draft strategy but it is of great interest to see what the witnesses think about implementing it from a health perspective and a justice perspective. That will be really helpful to the work of the committee.

I will start with An Garda Síochána, following up to some extent on what Senator Ruane said. The focus is not on prosecution for those addicted. We heard about the normalisation of drugs in areas. I see it where I live. It is normal for people to use drugs recreationally. How does An Garda Síochána deal with the people who are stopped and have drugs for a party they are going to or something like that? They are not in addiction. A lot of people use drugs but do not actually become addicts. They use them because they choose to. Our services are already struggling. For me, people being referred to a help-led service when they do not want it or do not really need it is a waste of resources. I am just wondering how the Garda would deal with that situation for the people who are not addicted but just have drugs in their possession for personal use. Should they be criminalised just because they happen to be in possession?

My second question is about drug-related intimidation, which is huge. We have it in every single community. We are trying to focus people and point them towards the services but they are terrified.

In terms of the new local community safety partnerships, could these people play a role in them as they progress?

My colleague will talk about the international experience. First, the Deputy talked about recreational drugs. That is not a term that adequately reflects the connection that the use of drugs has-----

I agree.

-----and the people the Deputy talked about who do not become addicted, thankfully for them.

Yes.

There is a disconnect between the harm that they are causing in the country of origin where the drug is cultivated and right through all of that criminality. We know that 40% of organised crime networks in Europe are involved in drug trafficking and that 60% of them----

I get that but our services are struggling at the moment. I refer to somebody who has drugs in their possession, for their own personal use because he or she may be going to a party or whatever, and bleeding our services dry when we do not have them and when we already struggle to get people into health programmes.

I take the point made by the Deputy. Our target is not on those people. Our target is disrupting the supply routes. Mr. Boland will comment on the international experience and Professor Keenan might also have a view on that.

On the normalisation of drug use by people who are not addicts and are just going to a party, we do a lot of work with the Department of Health on what we would call "back of house examination of drugs". At music festivals, there is a confidential analysis process in place with the HSE where people can hand over drugs that they are using for analysis. If the drugs are extremely dangerous, harm reduction processes are applied. It is very important in all of these debates that we always remember that any research I read would still indicate that at least 80% of the population do not use drugs but, as a police service in this country, we serve all of the citizens of the State.

The idea of the health referral or health diversion scheme is going to be to try to prevent people from suffering harm from drug use, which can happen to them, so that we can make a referral. That referral will be an administrative referral and will not be a sanctioned process, which is important. There are governance procedures built into the process and a review after a 12-month period. We would hope that at that stage, we will be much more clear as to how successful it is or otherwise. The normalisation of drug use is a significant problem.

The section 3 discussion has been raised on a number of occasions. We have seen that the other jurisdictions that have legalised cannabis, for instance, are now source countries for the illegal cannabis trade into Ireland with multi-million euro drug seizures on a regular basis. The criminality still continues. We are trying to deal with it all in that way. Professor Keenan may also wish to address this issue.

I will start by talking about the SAOR brief intervention. SAOR is a very important element of the health diversion programme that is going to be implemented. SAOR uses a person-centred approach based on motivational interviewing. SAOR supports the person, asks them to assess their drug use, offers assistance and refers. We estimate that between 10% and 20% will need an onward referral. The brief intervention has been shown to be an effective prevention and early intervention approach. A person who is using drugs - the Deputy mentioned that he or she may not be dependent on those drugs - may not realise the harms or risks associated with those drugs. For example, ketamine is a drug which is now used widely by young people in certain settings. Many of them may not be aware of the bladder problems that are associated with ketamine. The brief intervention allows an opportunity to have a conversation with the person about their drug use, and to explain the risks and harms associated with drug use. From that perspective, SAOR can be an effective prevention and intervention at that point. People will still benefit from getting a brief intervention by the health service through a SAOR intervention even if they are not dependent on drugs.

Since 2013, An Garda Síochána has carried out extensive work on drug-related intimidation. We have nominated and appropriately trained drug-related intimidation reporting inspectors in every division throughout the country. We link in with the Department of Health's DRIVE project, which is up and running across the country. Our drug-related intimidation inspectors are also participants in the local drugs and alcohol task forces, as is the local DRIVE lead in each of the relevant health service areas. From the national co-ordination perspective for the Department of Health's DRIVE project, An Garda Síochána also sits on that forum. While there is daily, and sometimes hourly, interaction between An Garda Síochána and the Department of Health on drugs issues and early warning, we have the same systems in place for drug-related intimidation because we have seen this as a priority for the last number of years. It is an issue that we know impacts greatly on local community safety and, therefore, it is a priority for An Garda Síochána. It is linked with the local drugs and alcohol task forces where the experts are at the moment.

My apologies for being late. I thank the witnesses for the work they are doing within their own respective areas.

My first questions are for Mr. Leach. In his opening statement he stated that the cost of drugs services is €170 million and mentioned that an increased number of people require care and treatment. Education about the dangers of drugs cuts across a number of Departments ranging from justice to housing, education and health. Should a more co-ordinated approach be adopted by all the Departments in order to convey the message, especially to young people? Mr. Leach might say that education is a matter for the Department of Education and Youth. Are we doing enough to co-ordinate the message about the risks of getting involved in drugs? It turns out that some vapes are dangerous to young people. Have we done enough work in that area? Could we do a lot more to reduce the number of people who purchase and use drugs?

On prevention, as has been said, it is clear that we are not doing enough. The evaluation of the last national drugs strategy says that we can do more. The new draft national drugs strategy, which has been submitted to committee members, states that we should and can do more. As the Deputy will know, the national drugs strategy is a cross-departmental and cross-government approach which includes nominees from the Department of justice and the Department of the Taoiseach. I ask Dr. Keenan to talk about the actual work we are doing in terms of prevention.

On the justice side, the Garda end up dealing with it and it appears on the education side as well. Is there enough co-ordination between Departments?

Professor Keenan might speak about the education perspective because the HSE runs a programme in schools.

Mr. Leach is referring to the HSE's Know the Score evaluation. The Deputy is correct that any drug prevention system requires a co-ordinated inter-agency approach across education, health, child and family, youth justice and community sectors. They are all part of the work that is required in terms of prevention. I hope that the new strategy will specifically address that collaborative inter-agency work.

Obviously prevention has to use a population-based approach. At present HSE public health is conducting a national needs assessment for drug and alcohol prevention to understand the underlying causes of drug and alcohol use, and to analyse the strengths and limitations of the current responses we have in place. This assessment involves a range of consultations and engagements with communities.

There are focus groups, a national survey with the general population in collaboration with IPSOS, and a national survey of key stakeholders. This will conclude in 2026 and will inform the HSE prevention effort, in collaboration with all of these partners. The early findings from the survey indicate there is a lack of comprehensive, co-ordinated and national infrastructure for drug prevention. There are gaps in resourcing, training, staff support and research. These all need to be resourced and identified in our new strategy. This needs assessment will inform those responses.

We have a huge number of agencies throughout the country dealing with people with drug-related problems. No matter where we go, whether to Cork, Limerick or Galway, there are different agencies. In dealing with all of this, would we have a more effective scheme if we had one overall agency dealing with the education issue and trying to co-ordinate treatment and the back-up support required for families?

It has long been the case that a lot of the funding and treatment is through section 39 organisations, as Deputy Burke knows from his time as Minister of State. This has a lot of value. Local communities know best in many cases and, as Mr. Boland has already said, there is a lot of value in local communities and in linking in with drug and alcohol task forces or the local drug recovery services we have in various places. An effort to co-ordinate all of these services into one agency would be a huge task. I am not sure of the value of it and whether it would have a substantial impact on the delivery of services. If we were starting from scratch with health services, we would have one agency as a preference but in many cases in healthcare we got here in this way and we have a patchwork of various section 38 and section 39 organisations. This causes challenges but sometimes it presents opportunities because these organisations know their local communities perhaps better than we do at a central level.

We have been given figures with regard to Merchants Quay and the number of more than 17,000 visits. It is quite clear that over the past 12 months the programme there has been a success in dealing with it. Looking at it now, is there a need to look at other centres throughout the country, whether in Cork, Limerick or Galway? What is the approach of the Department to looking at this and identifying places where there is a need for this level of support?

As Deputy Burke is aware, given that he signed the order in the first place to establish the supervised injection facility, it was put forward as a pilot programme. It is working really well through co-operation with our colleagues in An Garda Síochána, without which it would be impossible. The service is working well. It has been subject to a number of tweaks and changes in the past 12 months. We changed the opening times a little bit and the entrance has been changed. Various things have been done to tweak it and make it better for those who use the service and for the local community. A full evaluation will now take place at the end of the 18-month period. Dublin City Council has gone for planning permission to extend its life beyond the 18-month pilot. We will properly evaluate it and this will tell us where we go next. I am aware that members of the committee and others have requested similar facilities throughout the country and mobile facilities. We do not have a closed mind on any of these things. The evaluation will present us with options as to where we go next. If this is a success, it can be a success elsewhere.

The evaluation will not take place until the 18 months has passed.

It will be a full evaluation at the end of the 18 months.

How long will the evaluation take?

We have engaged Queens University Belfast and Trinity College Dublin to do the evaluation. We have a six-month interim report and we will have the final evaluation after 18 months, which we expect to be published in September.

We need the work on needs analysis to be done and we need to provide this information. I do not think anyone will be shocked by the idea that there are gaps in services and in what needs to be done. If we speak about addiction in Ireland, we will appreciate that have never had a great relationship with alcohol right through. It is probably no shock that cocaine stepped into that place. It is a question of how we address the issues that exist when we are dealing with the impact that drug addiction and drug crime have in working-class areas, which is different. As much as drugs are everywhere, and are impacting on a huge number of communities that would not have necessarily fallen into that bracket before, it is still a very different thing. It is a matter of how we tackle all of it and this is right through.

We have seen diversion programmes. Representatives of Archways came before the children's committee to discuss the use of the Greentown project for those falling into crime. They said that, to be clear, even with all of these projects and the great work, there has been an abject failure in the sense that we are still dealing with families three and four generations in. This work needs to be done. It is about making sure we fill the gaps. When Dr. Garrett McGovern was before the committee, he said that it is grand if they are looking for something as regards opiates but it is not necessarily easy to access addiction services for benzos as there are not as many of them. It is this idea of gaps.

We all get the point of view of the Garda that we do not want gardaí wasting the time of courts and their own time. We do not want people who need help and support falling into the criminal justice system. At the same time, the Garda also needs an ability to deal with criminality. We all speak about the war on drugs as being lost but we could all probably pull out a number of names and say our particular communities would be better if X,Y and Z were taken off the streets, or the particularly bad example that has existed in a particular area. Somebody might have had enough wit not to engage in the same level of drug debt intimidation as somebody else who brought themselves to the fore. I think it was Mr. Boland who was speaking after some of the brutal acts of drug intimidation that happened before Christmas and said there were 169 criminal gangs in the State, with 65% of them involved in drugs and 24% a high priority. I suppose my question is how we wed all of this and also deal with the fact that an awful lot of people out there, who do not think anything much about it and think that they might not even develop a problem, will take cocaine. They do not realise they are paying money to these people who are making other people's lives an absolute misery.

This is a great question.

I would like that recorded.

We are An Garda Síochána. We are a policing service to everybody, as I said, in this jurisdiction.

And you implement the law.

That is it. The onus is on us to implement it equally throughout society with everybody. We are back to the question of the normalisation of drugs. There is a lot of public commentary. We have been very much to the fore in our media campaigns in recent times on the normalisation of drug use and understanding that it is occurring in all spectrums of society. A lot of the people using drugs do not see the devastation or the violent impact.

Or do not want to see it

Or they do not want to see it and will not accept it. The Garda Commissioner, Mr. Kelly, has raised this issue in public. We had a recent campaign about every line funding crime. We take every opportunity we get to highlight this to people because we are very conscious, and we always have been, that the decision somebody will make to use drugs is a personal decision that person is going to make. Only education, hopefully, will prevent them from doing it, which is what all of our different agencies and Departments are engaging on together. It has been difficult for quite some time to get this message across and we think it is extremely important. Speaking about education, we are a community-based policing organisation. We have links with every parish in the country. Our community police engage in our schools programmes and we are inundated throughout the country, whether from sports clubs or others, with requests for us to get people in to talk to them.

I will be playing football tonight - very badly - with a number of Garda members and youth diversion programmes. Stuff like that is vital. There needs to be more of it. It has to happen earlier to build up those relationships. None of it is perfect and, as I said, we need to do those earlier pieces, but we still need the Garda at times to deal with those people who are having an impact on those they are selling to and on communities impacted by that.

That is why we are very conscious of all the factors the assistant commissioner read out. All our roles and responsibilities under the Act cover such a wide spectrum of issues across the country, but we are about analysis. Data is important. The data that will be reviewed from the health referral scheme will be important to us. The data we are analysing from cases of drug-related intimidation that we are identifying is important to us. The data from us analysing the level of crime and the crime gangs across the country is important to us so that our valuable resources can be focused in the right direction to have the maximum impact.

There is probably a need for the Garda to supply some of that information to us because sometimes people miss out on it. Something will happen in the news that will get focus, but an awful lot of the time they do not realise how prevalent this is and how impactful it is unless it lands on their door.

We have been public in relation to some of the data. It is an ongoing process, but 169 organised crime gangs have been identified throughout the country. Seventeen of those are the responsibility of organised and serious crime in my own bureau to try to disrupt and dismantle them, including network disruption, and to impact on those groups. We have been collecting information on drug-related intimidation for a period, since 2021, but we must remember that is so sensitive and is a confidential process we have. Data has been released previously when it is at such a level it will not risk any form of identification of who the people being intimidated are. Our sole and number one purpose is preservation of life and our mission statement is about keeping people safe. We are conscious of all of that. That level of analysis is going on in An Garda Síochána.

It is hoped that with the information we are gathering, we will become more aware of the areas most affected by drug-related intimidation. It is important for us. The Deputy hit the nail on the head. We need to know who the people engaging in drug-related intimidation are. What we are finding, even from our analysis at the moment, is the majority of people engaging in that are young males aged between 18 and 24. They are known to us. They are people who are already in the criminal justice system on occasion and have been engaging in crime. We can prioritise the targeting of those people engaging in this activity-----

I have seen that done locally.

I will ask my questions now. Mr. Boland mentioned something I would like him to expand on. He said that source countries that have legalised cannabis are now having an impact on our supply chain. Will he elaborate without breaking any operational secrets?

That is something we have raised publicly previously. My colleagues, particularly at the customs revenue service, are the people at the points of entry into the State in relation to many issues, including the issue of drug trafficking. The significant seizures of cannabis that are occurring can be seen publicly in the newspapers. At Dublin Airport, for instance, the source countries now for significant volumes of cannabis coming into this country are Canada, the United States and Thailand.

I can absolutely see where the Garda is coming from in terms of the public relations campaign of "every line is a crime". People need to be conscious of the global devastation that comes when they use cocaine. I fully accept that, but when cannabis comes from the US and Canada, the devastation and fuelling of gangs actually starts at our airports. Those countries are growing it legally. We are getting the excess that is fuelling our gangs here that are then engaging in drug-related intimidation. It is hard to see the global devastation of cannabis because it starts off with fuelling the drug gangs right here in Ireland, which is based on our prohibition of cannabis.

The cannabis being purchased and imported into Ireland is not being purchased legally, even though it is being purchased in countries where it is legal. It is a criminal logistics process from beginning to end and it is then coming over here. The devastation we have seen in other countries is fairly visible.

Absolutely. Columbia and South America are extraordinary. It is within that space that I sometimes feel it is our prohibition on that particular drug that is creating the market.

I will turn to section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. What impact would the removal of section 3 by the State have? The previous committee recommended its removal. What impact would that have on the Garda's work? I imagine it would be quite significant.

In relation to cannabis, in 36 years in the Garda I have yet to find a drug-trafficking gang that only imports cannabis. They all import the same products.

I was going back to when Mr. Boland mentioned the source countries, which are Canada and the United States.

On section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, simple possession runs in tandem with possession for supply in the legislation. Every person prosecuted for a drug-trafficking offence is also prosecuted for a section 3 offence of simple possession. Not all drug-trafficking offences involve the truckloads or carloads we see. The most visible ones are probably the street-level drug deals taking place that are impacting on local communities. There are even occasions when drug traffickers will have very small amounts of drugs in their possession that they carry around, or they have other people carrying small amounts of drugs in their possession, as part of how their drug-trafficking operation works. Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act and the simple possession of controlled drugs remaining illegal are extremely important for us to be able to deal with drug trafficking and the issues surrounding it.

Is that the appropriate use of that section though? The simple possession of drugs for personal use comes under section 3. The Garda Inspectorate report of 2014 found that power under section 3 was being used quite extensively in going beyond just searching for simple possession. It seems to be something that is used for broader enforcement. Are there other powers the Garda needs?

The power of search comes under section 23, which is the power of search if a member of An Garda Síochána has reasonable grounds to believe that somebody is in possession of a controlled drug. That is the power of search. If they are in possession of the controlled drug, the determination then has to be made what the purpose of their possession is. Is it for simple possession or is it for the purpose of possession for supply? It is the possession of the drug that is illegal. That is the legislation as it is laid out.

Would the Garda still have that power to search or intervene if section 3 were removed of the Misuse of Drugs Act? That is the debate we have had in this room for the last eight months. If we removed section 3, would the Garda still have the capacity to have a wide range of search powers to stop people-----

No. Section 3 is related to the possession of drugs and that somebody is in possession of a controlled drug. That is section 3. The assessment then is what the purpose of the possession is. A search warrant for a premises or house comes under section 26. The reality in relation to the use of section 23 is it is not in our interest to target people because they are users of drugs. Generally, a section 23 search will arise because something else has happened, whether there is activity that has been complained about, suspicious activity, or something happening in an area.

I will move on. I might come back on that in the second round.

How much funding does the Department of justice give to the drug-related intimidation and violence engagement, DRIVE, programme? I understand it is funded by the Department of Health. I get that, but I am just making the point-----

We fund the programme-----

Is it €250,000?

It is €250,000 a year and then we have co-operation from An Garda Síochána.

That is the point I want to make. There have been 2,500 incidents of drug-related intimidation since 2021. A sum of €250,000 seems a very small amount, given the scale of work that is needed.

It is a community-based response and it is escalatory. In other words, people engage with it as much as they want.

We are trying to support people with our programme who feel intimidated because of drug-related violence to the level they want to be supported. An Garda Síochána has nominated local officers who will support people who wish to be supported with Garda intervention. We are signposting to services that already exist. The €250,000 is purely for the signposting. It is two services that already exist and are funded separately.

Does the Department of justice support or fund any other initiatives relating to drug-related intimidation?

We support and fund An Garda Síochána. The funding for its response to drug-related intimidation comes from that.

Would there be funding for drug-related intimidation workers locally in the community?

No, we do not directly fund drug-related intimidation workers.

We will come back to that in second. We will move on to Senator Ruane.

Apologies for coming in and out to vote in the Chamber. It is not my preference.

The engagement the Chair had there with Mr. Boland is very important. Under sections 15 and 15A, would An Garda Síochána not still have stop and search powers unrelated to a premises but where there is still enough suspicion for supply? Section 15A relates to the level of supply increasing. The commander of the police in Porto was before this committee in the previous Dáil, and we have spoken to other police forces both in the committee and outside in some of our groupings, and they are very clear that they do not need a power like section 3 to find something like section 15. They are quite confident that their police forces have enough intelligence and intel training to be able to arrest somebody on the sale of supply and that the evidence threshold would be at that level. Without sections 3 and 23, section 15A would serve that purpose if there was a suspicion of supply.

That may be the case, but simple possession of drugs is and remains a criminal offence for all the reasons that were deeply discussed throughout the Citizens' Assembly. It is an important factor in the work we engage in.

I understand that. It is still on the Statute Book, so gardaí have to adhere to it. I asked the question to expose the fact that we had not moved towards a decriminalised model. That is more aimed at the public health Department and people who understand social and public health policy. I agree with what Assistant Commissioner Willis said, in that the Garda is not the response to addiction and all of those different societal things. I ask all of these questions to expose why we do not have a public health approach to drugs and why section 3 is so problematic in that regard. I am not necessarily questioning the witnesses having to use section 3, given that it is currently on the Statute Book.

Yes. I just want it on the record that section 15 exists, if we were ever to move towards the Department of justice or Government removing section 3 and making it so that personal possession is not a crime. Section 3 could be removed without impacting sale or supply.

I will add one thing that I mentioned earlier. It is extremely important. We have had prosecutions of people under section 15 who have not been convicted under that section, but instead under section 3. The determination of the court was that there was insufficient evidence for supply, but they were convicted under section 3.

I will have another question for the Garda.

I do not want to repeat anything, so I am sorry if it has already been brought up, but are there plans to roll out safe injecting facilities elsewhere? We also need to move towards the consumption sites piece. Will the Department comment on any discussions or efforts being made in that regard?

Am I right in saying that Ireland is a bit of an outlier or one of the few countries that does not provide any rights for, say, a minor in a stop and search? I always have concerns about where policing decisions are made in communities that are more likely to be policed than others because of all of the other different activities and the reasons that drive that. I am not debating the drivers there, rather that some people will encounter stop and search operations much more than others. There is also the question of minors not having the right to have an adult present for a stop and search. What is the view on that, and am I correct in saying that Ireland is one of few countries that does not permit the presence of an adult for a stop and search?

I thank the Senator for her question. The important thing to say here is we deal with addiction, homelessness and mental health issues all day every day in particular communities. We are governed by the Children Act when we deal with children. When we engage with a child and they are brought to a Garda station, the first thing we do is look for a parent or guardian. In some communities, there are challenges in getting somebody to come to the Garda station to-----

What about street stop and searches, where it has not got to the point where an arrest has been made and the child has been brought to the Garda station?

There is the question of the logistics of having a parent with their child on the street. In some circumstances where you might be dealing with antisocial behaviour - we spoke earlier about e-scooters, e-bikes, etc. - we know the harm that is inflicted on communities. As my colleague said, we police all of the community and so not just search elements of it. Our members deal with what they face in front of them on the ground. If that involves searching a child, usually the child is brought to the station and then we make every effort to bring an appropriate adult in. If we can get a parent, great. If we can get a guardian, good. If we cannot, we have often brought the likes of peace commissioners or an appropriate adult into the station if we need to engage further with those children.

As a community worker and a young person who had a lot of encounters with An Garda Síochána, that would not have been my experience. There definitely were occasions where we were brought to the Garda station, but we were stopped and searched repeatedly as children in the estate. That can affect relationships and trust in authority and the State. A child is a child and should have an adult with them within the law, but I understand-----

To finish that point, much of the work we do is trying to engage with communities and break down barriers between the police and some communities that are suffering more deprivation than others. We spoke earlier about football matches tonight with other gardaí and children, and we have lots of projects we engage with. Many gardaí also give up their own time. They are not just community gardaí on their working tours. They are actually invested in those communities. You especially see that in and around the inner city areas.

We take a human rights and empathetic focus when dealing with children in particular and we try to break down those barriers and build confidence among the children so that if they do find themselves in a situation where they need to call gardaí, they are not afraid to do so.

We also have our schools programme, where we proactively go into primary and post-primary schools. We different programmes for different age categories. There is a huge amount of work being done in that space. There is also the juvenile diversion programme, where we have specific members trained in how to interact appropriately with children to try to divert them from harm. Three out of every group of children who are referred to that programme never reoffend. It is one of the most successful programmes we run. We are supported by the Department around the projects that fall out of that, and we can divert the children into those projects to occupy their time in a constructive way rather than hanging around street corners, causing hassle and maybe engaging in behaviour that is causing harm or alarm to other residents in the community.

Apologies, but I had to go to vote. I also apologise if this question has already been asked and the witnesses have already answered.

Getting back to section 3, I appreciate that the operational guidelines are still being worked on and are not yet finalised. However, to the extent that they can speak to it, can the witnesses talk us through them? In response to Senator Ruane, it was explained that if somebody was engaged who had an illicit substance for personal use or was asserting it was so, they would be given a caution and referred to the SAOR project in the first instance. As Senator Ruane explained, addiction is not solved overnight.

It can be an ongoing and lifelong process and it can incur relapses from time to time. Will the witnesses share with us the thinking on how subsequent events would be managed? Would it be sufficient if the individual had been referred to the SAOR project, had started to engage, had fallen out and was referred back? Where will the discretion be exercised, who will exercise it and how many times? I use "times" because that is quantifiable, but maybe it is not the right measure. I would like to understand how that is progressing and shaping up.

I will turn to my colleague in a minute to go into the detail of how it is envisaged that it will be implemented, but the first thing to say is we heard earlier that 17,000 people walked into the supervised injection facility in Merchant's Quay and we did not engage with any of those people. People who are suffering addiction are not our target. We are targeting the supply networks and trying to disrupt and dismantle those routes and that supply. For a start, that is not our focus.

Where we engage with somebody and they are in possession of a quantity which is for their own personal use, there is no caution. We will engage with them. The committee has heard from Professor Keenan. That engagement can be really positive where you are imparting information about the harm they are causing to themselves. We talked about the people who are not addicted as such to the substance they are taking, but that brief intervention can be life-changing for them and can shape their future. We know from the evidence from the diversion programme we have for juveniles that they do not come back and reoffend in the vast majority of cases. That early intervention works and the evidence supports that.

On the Senator's question about how many times, etc., we are going to do this as a pilot approved concept and then we will evaluate it after a period of time to see. Along the way, we might end up tweaking it or whatever, but we are going to try it because we know we are not going to arrest our way out of the addiction crisis that is there. Certainly, it is a health intervention and you cannot take the police out of that scenario either because then you have other issues to contend with.

I will hand over to the Detective Chief Superintendent Boland about the workings of what we are proposing with the health diversion scheme.

I would add that our ground zero or first point of contact with addiction is not normally just someone being stopped on a search and being found with a piece of cannabis or a piece of cocaine. Generally, something much more serious has occurred or we are bumping into them in homelessness. That is what tends to happen.

Regarding the health referral scheme proposal, the people who will benefit most from that are going to be the people for whom it is their first interaction because of what circumstances have occurred and they have not come into the criminal justice system. For instance, sometimes, at a concert or whatever, there is a security protocol and someone is found in possession of a controlled drug. That person will be given the option that we can deal with this by the administrative process and they will be given the appropriate information for them to engage with the health service and have their SAOR project. That, from our perspective, is as much as we want to know about that. That is our intention.

There are specific governance structures in that as well, because it is important for us as an organisation to ensure that this is going to be delivered equally in every community and all across the country. We have had significant investment in our own IT infrastructure in recent months so that we will be in a position where senior management in every division across the country will be able to monitor to ensure that it is being implemented correctly. It is our hope that this proposal will be a success so that we never engage with any of these people again. Some of them may actually become members of our own organisation in the future, and if so, they would be the success stories.

If somebody engages on a second occasion, it is a question of why An Garda Síochána is engaging with this person on a second occasion. This is why the evaluation after 12 months will be extremely important. We only engage with people because of the environment or the circumstances that are happening. It is difficult to give a generalisation in relation to everything, but the internal governance and oversight from local management is there if a person is engaged with again, whether that person is to be prosecuted or whether there is the option of the adult caution. The reality is that a lot of people we engage with for simple possession of drugs are where it is drugs found in someone's possession because of some other incident that has happened. It could be a public order incident. It could be a road traffic accident. It could be someone arrested for being under the influence, or texting, while driving. There are many reasons and there can be many other aspects. We will be all much better informed, let us say, 12 months after, when an evaluation has been completed, as to why numbers are certain numbers and how many people were dealt with. That analysis will greatly inform the process.

Gabhaim buíochas leis na bhfinnéithe.

Returning to drug-related intimidation, this is probably a statement rather than a question. I have worked closely with my local drug task forces, which, I have to say, are superb. What concerns me is they have basically been written out of the draft strategy in terms of funding and their position, but that is for another day.

In relation to statistics, it appears that what the detective chief superintendent would get would be statistics of people who would finally go to the Garda, and it does not happen a lot. Over the last couple of years, I have stood with families who have fought - two of them only - very successful cases, from beginning to end. They were terrified, and the only reason they went through the process was because they had no option. They had no money and they could not get access to money to pay off those who were doing the intimidating. It was horrendous. This also affects elderly people and others.

In terms of statistics, what the detecting chief superintendent is getting, when it finally reaches the Garda, is probably the tip of the iceberg. However, I have to say our local gardaí are excellent. They deal with people in a really humane way and very sensitively. That is kind of a statement more than anything else.

On section 3 versus section 15, to put it bluntly, is it a case that if the Garda suspects somebody of being in possession for sale and supply and that it will not stick, section 3 is then applied? The penalties for both are exactly the same, which is a little strange. Is that a way, if it gets to a court situation, of getting at somebody that the Garda knows is selling and supplying rather than having drugs for their own personal use?

No. I hope I am not being misunderstood, and apologies if I have been explaining myself totally wrongly. There are many circumstances when we are dealing with local street-level drug dealing. The people who are actually selling will carry a small amount of the actual drug. That is a small amount of drug, which, if you go by the amount they have on them at any given time, unless you have other evidence, means it will only be possible to prosecute for simple possession. We see that regularly because mobile phones have changed the whole system of street-level drug dealing compared with what it was many years ago. People do not need to go to a location to buy drugs anymore; the drugs come to them. There are scooters, electric bikes, etc., and people coming and going. The only way in which you can deal with that street-level, in-your-face drug dealing and methodology, because drug dealing and drug trafficking adjust to our activities and to modern society, is through section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act and prosecutions for those people. Many of those people will be prosecuted, but the reality is we know they are drug dealers as well. Obviously, we can only deal with the basic evidence that is actually there. I hope that explains that one more clearly.

I agree with the detective chief superintendent on the way things are moving. I spoke one day here about scavenger hunts. Every day, I think I am just getting older because everything moves on so quickly.

The idea that there would be scavenger hunts for drugs was alien to me but there you go. I thank the witnesses.

I will add that if section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, which is simple possession, became legal tomorrow, every drug dealer in the country would only be carrying a small amount of drugs that would only fall under the category of simple possession. Remember you heard that here.

On drug-related intimidation, we have the data and statistics. We totally recognise the fear that is out there. I was a drug-related intimidation inspector in Ballymun for a period of time. I dealt with cases where I never met the people being intimidated. Intermediaries from some of the local health groups in the area were interacting with me. We analyse the data. We look at crimes being committed where there may be other information that we may have that allows us to decide whether it is drug-related intimidation. Sometimes those victims are not even telling us that. Their cars may be burnt out, they may have been assaulted or had their windows broken, been attacked with a petrol bomb or something like that. Sometimes those people will not admit it to us but we are satisfied they are, and identify them as, cases of drug-related intimidation. The motive for the crime is drug-related intimidation and we monitor and record that on our system. We want to identify people who are at significant risk. I will go back to what I said earlier. We need to identify who are the people engaging in drug-related intimidation so we can pursue them.

We have had significant long-term operations as part of our analysis. Only in recent weeks we have had a significant operation with a number of arrests for questioning. These are people who we believe are directing others to engage in drug-related intimidation. We hope, if we can gather enough evidence, to present them before the courts. The evidence will be given that these are the people directing this type of activity. We encourage people to come forward.

The report on Merchant's Quay Ireland referred to 1,500 clients and 17,000 visits. The big problem with drug addiction is access to accommodation. Many people will have moved out of home. Some of them are in inappropriate residential accommodation that is not suitable to their needs. Others are using residential night shelters. Some people are not even using those. I will ask about access to facilities and supports during the day. We have not done an overall programme in that regard. We are relying on the various agencies outside the HSE, the Department of housing and the Department of justice. Has that whole issue been looked at? Do we need to take a far more co-ordinated approach to provide access during the day?

We want to do a day centre in Cork. Tenders have been invited. I am not sure how that will progress over the next 12 months. It is important from the point of view of people accessing help and support, and helping them to go down a better road than the one they are travelling. Where are we, from a national of point of view, on that issue?

I will speak about Merchants Quay Ireland and the service it provides. Alongside the supervised injecting facility, SIF, it has services for homeless people and for people in addiction. A huge bonus of having the facility located by Merchant's Quay is that the people who are availing of the facility have access to homeless and other supports that are available to them. We would all obviously love it if they were to engage with addiction support. That is on offer to all the people but is not necessarily an option they have to take up or would be in a position to take up. It is open to them to engage inasmuch as they can with the addiction services that are there.

We have a particular concern about the 4,500 to 5,000 people who are homeless in Dublin and are mainly living in private emergency accommodation. Single people are a particularly vulnerable cohort. We work with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive around an intervention and in-reach programme on a health basis. Many of the people we target have mental health and addiction difficulties.

We identify gaps and that is why we put in place services such as the Dublin Simon facility at Usher's Island, which offers support to homeless people in various ways. The acute hospitals in Dublin also have a lot of social inclusion work that goes on but the facility at Usher's Island provides approximately 1,000 episodes of care per year to that very vulnerable population. We hope to expand. We are evaluating it this year. Some 75 beds are open and we would hope to open it in full to include 100 beds over the next period of time, and to provide more facilities. It is an extremely vulnerable population. We can always do better in the integration of services and working better with our colleagues in the Department of housing. We are currently working with them to examine how we can better support that population, in particular.

The HSE has different locations around the city of Cork.

Yes.

One location with a whole range of services could made be available to people who are homeless.

That population is very concentrated in Senator Fitzpatrick's constituency and the Gardiner Street area, in particular. That population is centred in Dublin city centre. There are a range of facilities. The Deputy mentioned Cork and there is a commitment to open a homeless hub there. That would be a combination of housing supports through Cork City Council and the local HSE providing health supports in the one centre in Cork city by the end of the year. That is replicating models we have that work quite well.

Tenders have been submitted. Is that project likely to progress over the next two to three months?

The Deputy has engaged with me heavily on the issue. On a previous occasion, I committed that we would endeavour to open the facility by the end of this year. As far I know, we are still on track but I will get an update for the Deputy.

We are not just talking about Cork and Dublin. We are also talking about places such as Limerick and Galway. Have we sufficient supports available to help people? Are we relying very much on voluntary organisations and section 39 organisations to provide support?

Any section 39 organisation that is providing that kind of support would be funded by the HSE under the section 39 of the Health Act. We have facilities in Galway and Limerick. Are they adequate? Some 70% of the homeless population is in Dublin city centre. It is concentrated in one area. There are other areas, such as Cork, as the Deputy mentioned. We can always do better and there is no point in saying otherwise. This is a very vulnerable population. We have an overall budget of €250 million per year for inclusion and health services. Would I like more? Yes, I would. We hear various ways in which it can be improved.

Where accommodation is provided for a period of time, have we sufficient connection with local authorities? When a person has spent three to six months in residential accommodation, which is structured and where there is treatment and support, the whole idea is that they would move out and into local authority accommodation. Have we enough of a connection there to allow that to happen? Will it be a situation whereby what was supposed to be three months or six months ends up being 12 months or two years? Are we satisfied about how that is progressing?

The Department of housing would, quite rightly, put pressure on us to provide better health services for people who are homeless. We would put pressure on the Department of housing to provide homeless solutions for people. We are currently working with the Department of housing on a working group to see how we can better address the health needs of that population. If we take the facility at Usher's Island, we want the people who end a period of care for addiction there to have somewhere to go. Not to speak for the Department of housing but its representatives tell me it delivered more social houses in 2025 than it has in a very long time. The Department is seeking to mandate local authorities to provide more single-person occupant dwellings, which would be more appropriate for that population. There has been a struggle for a long time to provide appropriate accommodation for that population. To be honest, people spend far too long in that type of accommodation and there is no point in saying otherwise. However, we are seeking to address that issue and to provide better health services to those people while they are in that accommodation.

I will follow on from Deputy Burke's points. We have Housing First as a support from local authorities.

There is an issue - and I have seen it happen previously, when one- or two-bedroom apartments came into play - when one is dealing with those in homelessness with addiction issues. Sometimes, there is also a crossover with mental health. An apartment may belong to an approved housing body but it did not necessarily have the holistic supports that were required and so, we are literally setting people up for failure, depending on where they are on their journey. That then creates an issue for the local authority, the approved housing body and An Garda Síochána. To go back to a point I made earlier, that gap exists and that is why we are very interested in that needs analysis. I have a specific question in relation to the point at which justice crosses over with health. I would also say the Department of children should also be part of the conversation from the point of view of early intervention. My feeling is that for all of the good projects out there, we do not have what we need to deal with the issues we are facing at the minute. We are not necessarily addressing those who are the most vulnerable and ready to fall into the chaos that is drug crime, criminality and addiction which can have really detrimental impacts. We are also not great in relation to the wider community that is also impacted by this. The powers and tools are not there in An Garda Síochána, Tusla or the local authorities. The local authorities often try to find solutions through transfers and harm reduction rather than being able to address the issues fully. We need to put all of the information out there. I am not sure we are even asking the right questions, never mind finding the right answers.

Under Housing First, the Department supported about 1,400 tenancies last year at a cost of about €7 million. That is a fairly significant cost per tenancy. There is a fairly heavy level of support-----

Yes but it will not deal with the whole cohort, particularly if there is a concentration and sometimes mistakes have been made-----

No, I did not suggest it would but the Deputy must accept that it is a significant cost and it is a model that seems to be working, albeit not for everybody. We have to acknowledge that there are particularly complex tenancies and families that need particular forms of support. We have done a pilot in Galway providing a number of families for whom it has been particularly hard to maintain a tenancy for a long number of years with high levels of support and that seems to be working quite well. These are very individual, tailored levels of support to high acuity families-----

If we had the perfect system or closer to perfect then screening and interventions at an earlier stage would be happening. In some cases we are talking about being ten, 15 or 20 years and sometimes, two generations too late to the game.

Yes and we do not have a perfect system.

There was a question earlier about the gaps in addiction services.

I will come in on that. The Deputy mentioned cocaine and the changing pattern of drug use that we are seeing and that is very evident in addiction services. In some ways we have to reorientate ourselves away from the traditional approach when we were dealing with opioid dependency, methadone clinics, buprenorphine clinics and so on. In some ways, that was easy because we can prescribe medication that will support people on their treatment journey but with the newer drugs, the stimulant-type drugs like cocaine, we do not have substitute medication. We also have to deal with the mental health problems that are associated with these substances. There is a real need for prescribing anti-depressants or, in some cases, anti-psychotics but the main interventions are going to be psychosocial and that is where we need to really ramp up our counselling provision. The Deputy is right. We had over 13,000 presentations to treatment in 2024 and the most common presentation was related to cocaine. Cocaine has overtaken opiates now in terms of treatment. We had over 5,000 people presenting for cocaine-related problems.

The services must also be dealing with a lot of polydrug users and that-----

Yes, polydrug use is common. The easiest way to look at the issue is by age group. For those under 19 years of age, cannabis is the main drug for those presenting with problems. For those between 19 and 44 years of age, cocaine is the main drug and for those over 45 years of age, it is opiates. The members of our opiate-using population is getting older but they have not gone away. They are getting older and have different needs so we really have to reorientate and pivot our services. That is why the new strategy is so important in terms of getting those psychosocial resources into place to deal with that.

We also mentioned the newer types of medication that we have for opiate dependence. We have injectable buprenorphine now which means that somebody may only have to attend a clinic once a month. That should free up capacity within the clinics. There are some things changing which are hopeful.

That report in September should highlight some of the gaps that exist.

The gaps and needs are around prevention.

Specifically about prevention.

The public health gaps and needs assessment is around prevention.

Okay. There is probably a bigger need for a review-----

There is no one piece, Deputy.

No, it is everything.

There is a health needs assessment going on in the north east inner city through the north inner city project, of which Deputy Gannon will be aware. That assessment is being done by the RCSI, with funding from our Department and the Department of An Taoiseach. That should give us a wider health needs assessment of a complex population which includes high levels of homeless individuals and high levels of people with drug dependency. That will give us other insights because there is no one particular answer.

I am interested in the Department of justice's involvement in the context of earlier interventions and conversations with the Department of children and others.

In terms of our involvement in the homelessness issue, we are part of the work referred to by my colleague in the Department of Health that is being led by the Department of housing. The aim of that work is to address homelessness for particular vulnerable communities. In particular, we are engaging in work focused on those coming out of the prison system with addiction needs who are at high risk of homelessness.

In terms of youth justice interventions, they are very successful and the rate of youth offending has fallen.

The interventions are now earlier but they probably need to be earlier again.

Absolutely, I agree. We have seen a reduction in youth offending and a significant reduction in the numbers of children in detention and that is following into prison. The one category of people in prisons that is actually falling is the 18 to 24 years of age group, which demonstrates the effect of the youth justice interventions. That said, the Deputy is absolutely right that we need to shift to earlier intervention and that is what we have started over the past year or two. We are focusing and concentrating interventions on the harder to reach most complex groups. It is a small enough cohort but it is a very difficult cohort. We are increasing funding-----

If we break that -----

-----into that area and trying to mainstream the lessons from the small number of projects that we have engaged with that are active in that area, with the very difficult to reach young people. The other thing we are doing is funding youth workers in all the projects to work with the eight to 11 year old cohort who do not actually have engagement with the criminal justice system themselves but for whom we are getting referrals from the education system. Often they are younger siblings or from families that we know are at high risk of becoming involved. We are funding those youth workers to engage with those children. Again, they are small in number but they are at the highest risk of being the most complex.

We have seen green shoots, where children whose siblings had fallen into criminality did not necessarily follow suit. That can be huge.

I have a couple of questions, the first of which is for Mr. Leach. For the first time since the 1990s the first draft of the national drugs strategy does not reference the persistent link between poverty, inequality and drug-related harm. There is no specific mention of poverty in the strategy. The Minister has said on numerous occasions that drugs impact all communities. We have heard it said lots of times that drugs impact all communities in Ireland, all towns and villages, but the strategy does not make specific reference to fact that drugs do not impact all communities in the same way.

The first thing I will say is that, as the Deputy knows, it is a draft strategy. It has been presented to this committee and we will be opening a public consultation on it shortly to allow people to feed into the strategy inasmuch as they want. There is a change in the nature of the drug problem, as has been outlined. It was the case that the drug problem was confined initially, going back 20 or 30 years, to communities with deprivation. It was largely confined to those communities and affected them more than any other. It is now, because of the nature of cocaine and its abuse, in every community. We hear testimony at this committee and elsewhere from people from all sorts of areas, including very rural areas, that drugs are a feature in their communities. The link between addiction and drug problems and poverty that was there previously, as Dr. Keenan has said, still exists. Opioids are still a huge problem.

I am particularly struck by Deputy Ó Murchú's point. He is absolutely right that the greatest impacts of the drug problem are to be found in communities of deprivation. That is certainly the case. However, it is now the case that all communities and all families in our society, for the first time, are affected. When we are devising a strategy we can say there is no community that is immune to it, that it is not specifically an issue of poverty but an issue of society. That is not to say, of course, there are not particularly acute needs in communities with high rates of deprivation.

As we know, the drugs and alcohol task forces get €28 million per year from the Department of Health, probably €30 million this year. An extra €32 million has been allocated to them this year. We have yet to engage with those task forces to discuss how they may contribute in the future in that changed landscape. We will shortly be kicking off a process under the strategy of talking to them about how, with the new health regions in the HSE and population-based funding, they fit into that landscape. Clearly they will be advocating, and rightly so, on behalf of their communities, many of which arose from the original drug crisis that developed in the 1980s and 1990s.

I do not disagree for a second that drugs impact communities the length and breadth of Ireland. However, I contend strongly that they do not impact all communities in the same way.

I accept that.

If one looks at the prison population in any prison that one would like to visit, inevitably one will find people from particular post code areas, the majority of which are disadvantaged. I do not really accept that a national drugs strategy would not be explicit in pointing that out.

The strategy is a draft for a reason. It will take into account this committee's deliberations, the public consultation and engagements with the drug and alcohol task forces on their role into the future. The ultimate strategy will look different from the draft strategy and that is why it is a draft and why we are conducting it in the way we are doing.

On drug-related intimidation, it must be said that gardaí do fantastic work in relation to that as well. There have been 2,500 incidents of drug-related intimidation reported up to December last year. There was a 40% increase in such incidents between 2021 and 2025 but the prosecution rate for drug-related intimidation and those engaged in it is only 4%. Despite the really great work gardaí are doing, there is a gap in terms of prosecutions of this insidious activity in our communities.

It is important to highlight that it is only since 2021 that we actually had the infrastructure to try to start recording incidents where the motive was drug-related intimidation.

Yes, so there have been 2,500 such incidents reported since 2021.

Yes, since 2021 and like everything when we are rolling it out, there will be increases as we become better at recording and so on. That figure relates to incidents that have occurred where we are quite satisfied that the motive is drug-related intimidation. In some instances people have actually come forward, admitted it and made statements which has resulted in some very high profile prosecutions and convictions in our courts. People have been convicted of crimes associated with drug-related intimidation but a lot of people will not admit that the motive for the intimidation is drug-related. As I said earlier, part of our process is to identify the people who are engaging in drug-related intimidation.

Can we do anything supportive in terms of the recommendations that we will be making in our report? Is there anything else An Garda Síochána needs in that regard?

What we need is for people to come forward and to have the confidence to report the matter to An Garda Síochána because it will be dealt with as discretely as they wish. That is what we would encourage because once we identify the perpetrators of this, we are targeting for other means. While there may not be what would be considered significant prosecutions for the incidents we have identified, the people who are engaging in it that have been identified may have been prosecuted for other offences which has resulted in them either being incarcerated or suddenly having other concerns themselves such that they are not engaging in drug-related intimidation.

It is such a difficult crime and issue to get exact statistics on. I would expect that those statistics, like everything, are going to rise but that is not an indication that the problem is getting worse. Rather, it is in an indication that people have more confidence in the systems and in reporting it. That is what we are trying to encourage. Eventually we will, hopefully, see a level of reporting but our priority is identifying the persons involved because we can use all of the powers available to us. On some occasions some of these people may already be wanted on bench warrants and all of a sudden they become a high priority to find and arrest under bench warrants, which then removes them from their community and they are not engaging in drug-related intimidation. If this committee could do anything, it would be to encourage people to come forward. There are great supports and advice available, whether through ourselves or the Department of Health by way of the DRIVE programme and we would encourage people to come forward. Ireland is actually one of the leading countries in the area of drug-related intimidation. Colleagues in other countries often ask us about how we tackle and approach it. We are encouraging people to come forward and while we expect those statistics to rise, that is not an indicator that the problem is getting worse.

Since 2021 there has definitely been an increase in the statistics, with 2,500 incidents reported. There has also been an increase in arson attacks in the past 12 months. The statistics are increasing, people are coming forward and are more aware of the DRIVE programme but the violence and intensity of the incidents also seems to be increasing.

The statistics for instances of drug-related intimidation have actually remained quite stable over the past three years. They have remained in the late 600s and are neither rising nor dropping sharply but the Cathaoirleach is correct. Arson is a heinous crime. We have all seen the effects of the petrol bombing of houses and burning of cars. It is a huge priority for our organisation in terms of all of those investigations. As I said earlier, we are treating those incidents in the same manner as we have treated feuding activity in the past. If people and organised crime groups are going to engage in that level of violence and activity, they are priorities for us to investigate and to tackle, up to and including the decision-makers. That is why, in recent times, we have had significant arrests and there will be further arrests later on as our investigations progress. We need the message to get out that those engaging in this activity can rest assured that they will be investigated and it is our intention to bring them to justice.

I have a question on the numbers. Dr. Keenan said that 5,000 individuals had presented with problematic cocaine use. Is that correct?

In 2024.

In roughly the same period Merchants Quay Ireland had 1,500 users of the injection facility. Is that correct?

That was in 2025. Up to November, there were 17,000 visits by 1,500 people.

So the numbers are more than threefold in terms of problematic cocaine use. As a rough indicator, that is indicative of the change in drug and substance consumption and the nature of the problem for us. It is a very broad statement but it is a good indicator.

I want to ask the witnesses from the Department of justice about the drugs treatment court. We visited that court and representatives of the court presented here before the committee. As Mr. Boland alluded to earlier, I am from Dublin Central, the north inner city. He also mentioned the overcrowding in prisons. Last summer the Prison Service, in its annual statement, said it had released somewhere in the region of 1,300 individuals on early release, all of them non-violent, mentally ill and addicted individuals. They were being released because of overcrowding in prisons and I would say that the vast majority of the 1,300 were released into my community, where we already have provided 70% of all the emergency homeless accommodation and where we are also providing a very significant proportion of the international protection accommodation.

They are people with very challenged personal circumstances. They have very complex needs and they are being put into a very diverse, dynamic and, at times, chaotic environment in terms of accommodation that somebody in the full of their health would struggle to do well in. I was really struck by the approach adopted by the Drug Treatment Court, DTC, because it has the Garda, the Probation Service, the education services, the health services and the local authority from a housing perspective. What will it take for us to get that facility expanded?

Last week I spoke to a parent who has a young adult son with mental health issues and an addiction. He was recently released from Cloverhill Prison, now lives in a hostel on Gardiner Street and has been moved for the third time in one week. I found it heartbreaking to hear the parent say that their son has reached the conclusion that he would be better off in prison because at least in prison there is stability and routine to his day. This young adult was not in the Drug Treatment Court and, therefore, has not benefited from all the additional supports. The DTC is great but it has been a pilot for 25 years. How do we move it on from being a pilot to mainstreaming it? More importantly, how can we expand the facility outside of Dublin?

As the Senator will know, the Drug Treatment Court has been evaluated and that will determine what we do next. There is no doubt that what works in the DTC is not just the court itself but all the other supports around it.

Earlier this week I spoke about it being preferable for a lot of these people not to come near the criminal justice system. I also spoke about what we are doing in Limerick with CAST. People who have mental health and possibly addiction issues combined are being diverted away from the criminal justice system and a court-type disposal. It is about trying to support people in various ways in terms of how they interact with the criminal justice system. In some cases an early diversion will mean people never come to a court and never end up with anything beyond that. In other situations, like with the Drug Treatment Court, people are referred to a service.

The piece that we need to work on is why there are so few referrals to the Drug Treatment Court. If it is to be expanded or replicated, a combination of things is required. This not just a justice issue. It is about how to provide those other supports. The evaluation will assist us in trying to see what we do next. Obviously the one in Dublin has been done on a pilot basis. A lot of it too is about how we determine what has been a success in terms of the DTC. There is a high bar there and that could be a deterrent and people might decide not to participate because they feel they may not be able to emerge from it successfully. We are looking at it and we will see what that means for us. We need to make sure the one we have works better and that is the space we are in at the moment.

When will the evaluation be completed?

The Court Service will have told the committee members last week. There is some tick-tacking to be done with it, the Department of Health, the HSE and the others who provide the supports around the court as it is at the moment. We would hope to bottom-out those discussions in the relatively near future and, hopefully, have a pathway forward.

Would it be possible for this committee to get a copy of even the draft evaluation?

The evaluation has not been published and must first go to the Minister.

We only recently received the evaluation. We want to conduct our own analysis of it first, working with the Court Service, so that we know what we are going to our Minister with, in terms of proposals. The evaluation has recommended some changes in governance and various things. We really need think that through. I would say within the next couple of months but we need to have a plan as to what we do with the evaluation.

As Ms O'Regan said, the issue is around the access to services and supports that the DTC provides as opposed to the court itself. Every court has the same powers as the DTC but the DTC brought the services together. We would like to at least mainstream the referral pathways and access to services through other courts. They do not necessarily all need to be a copy of the DTC. As Ms O'Regan mentioned, the number of referrals is not huge even in the biggest population centre and it might not be the way forward to replicate that model in other locations.

We are all very taken with the Drug Treatment Court. It is a multi-agency response and harm reduction by whatever means. What can be done to move it out of that pilot scenario? It is really good because you have the Garda, education services and the HSE and everyone operates on the basis of being trauma informed and dealing with the reality. It is really good from a humanity point of view in terms of how these people are dealt with - in a way they might not have been dealt with previously. I get what Ms O'Regan said in that in a perfect world we would have more substantial earlier interventions and avoid as much of this as possible. The Chair was right to say this has greater impact in areas of high deprivation.

The gardaí more than anyone at times probably need a multi-agency response. A young fella living in a council house could have the run of the place. He has to be caught red-handed, and everyone has seen "The Wire". It happens but even in those cases, it could take years. I, along with a Sinn Féin councillor and the county council, are looking to see if something can be done to speed this up in an interim scenario. Again, the services ranging from mental health services to addiction services are not there. There is also a policing need, or a local authority means, in terms of dealing with someone who is, technically, in breach of their tenancy but we have rules that are from another time and place. I will ask the Garda about that.

On drug-debt intimidation, not only has everyone seen "The Wire" but everyone has realised that when you can send in a cut-out, you send in a cut-out. Half the time it is some wee lad who also owes money who knocks on somebody's granny's door. It is the amount of resources required in relation to it. I have a particular issue. I have a decent relationship with the gardaí. I have seen them take serious action against people but sometimes it needs to be stated how difficult it is, that is, the number of gardaí involved in putting a serious operation in place. Whatever about getting lucky based on intelligence, it takes a long time to get it to the court process and to have an impact. Meanwhile those involved have been replaced by another squad who have come through. I have seen people who have had houses taken from them by CAB, which is brilliant, but they are back in operation the next day. It just goes on. They see it as the cost of doing business. I get that we are not going to "out arrest" this problem.

Along with diverting people and providing services, we also need to be able to get rid of, particularly in working-class areas, the bad example in the really nice house and who has been there forever or, as I said, the young fella who is doing this directly, or possibly outside a school or whatever, and lives in a council house provided by the State.

That is an issue for the gardaí.

It always falls to the gardaí.

That is the problem, Deputy. We acknowledge the harm that is caused. In relation to drug-debt intimidation, it is not the individual who is involved in drug distribution. It is the debt the individual has accumulated.

Yes.

Then it is their family who become the target.

It is a better money maker nearly than the original drug dealing.

That is the point. Earlier Mr. Boland mentioned that it is only really since 2021 that we proactively started trying to identify cases that are drug-related intimidation. There is no crime of drug-related intimidation but it does manifest itself in criminal damage, such as arson, burglaries, assaults, etc.

The figures have remained quite stable since we started counting them. If you look at 2021 there were about 450 cases where we could identify a direct motive of drug-related intimidation. That goes up to 611 last year. As the Cathaoirleach said earlier, it was about 2,800 overall for that five-year period. Last year there were 611 incidents of drug-related intimidation but 344 charges before the courts in relation to drug-related intimidation. There will be a lag in terms of following up the investigation and bringing a prosecution. It is about getting enough evidence for a presentation to the DPP and obviously it ultimately determines whether or not a case will be prosecuted. It is problematic and it needs all the agencies to come together, especially in housing situations where maybe the council is involved. If you take a flat complex, you could have one individual who is destroying the peace and harmony of that whole community. That is why, as Mr. Boland alluded to earlier, it is really important we know who those people are, so it is really important people report because we can target them. We might not be able to have enough evidence to prosecute them for the intimidation due to victims' fear of coming forward but there might be something else because generally they are not just involved in that intimidation and are involved in drug distribution or whatever the other crime is that is yielding the-----

There are also harm reduction pieces that could be done-----

One hundred per cent.

-----where we have seen people being put in the wrong places that have impacted, that have been overly useful to them.

Yes, absolutely. This will take a whole-system approach to deal with it and it is not the Garda and I said it earlier we-----

I do not think the conversation is being had. I am certainly not blaming the Garda. I am not even blaming the other agencies. I do not think we have had the conversation. I do not think anyone has thought about the powers that would be needed. We are still operating as if it were the 1950s.

There is a lot that has to happen before it comes to the Garda. We are at the end of a very long list. We talked earlier about prevention and education and it is all those initiatives that need to be in place. We only come in at the end when in a lot of cases it could be, or nearly is, too late.

I have one last point. My interactions with the Garda about drug debt intimidation have been for the most part positive. In some cases people want to pay or do whatever but when Christy Mangan was the chief superintendent he was in houses that were suffering drug debt intimidation where people had decided not to pay and the gardaí backed them absolutely. However, even in other cases it was the idea and the importance of getting the information. Even if those people are going to find whatever solution - I get it, be it stigma and not wanting anyone else to know about this - Christy Mangan said once the gardaí knew they were engaged in drug debt intimidation it meant they could do something to protect and then to target on that basis. There are obviously others who need to be targeted because it is not okay to be distributing for 25 years. That is a point that needs to be made. I will hand over to the witnesses as they are obviously far more au fait with this material than I am.

Just to add to that, it is our experience people who are engaged in drug-related intimidation are not just engaging in it on one occasion and not just against one person or family. It is people who are engaging in this all the time, which again goes back to how important it is for us to get that information. We have been pushing ourselves out there since 2013 trying to encourage communities to report it to us.

I have seen the huge level of discretion that has been used by gardaí, whether it is meeting people elsewhere or, as was said, using someone else. It is absolutely necessary.

Absolutely. With the acknowledgement it is an issue, we have made significant strides with that high-level violence over the past ten years from the drug trafficking groups because of the manner in which we targeted it. That was through, as I said, analysis of the information we had, identifying who are the controlling people and who are the facilitators and the enablers. As this is extreme violence that is impacting on communities, that same methodology is what we are using here. I am confident there are going to be significant prosecutions brought before the courts again. There have already been significant prosecutions over the past two or three years but we need people to come to us because if we have the information we can start planning and we can focus our resources on the right direction and have the impact.

I will say something finally, although I am half a liar in relation to that, obviously. I get it. We will not out-police this and whatever else but at times gardaí have to cover an awful lot of particular issues and sometimes have to deal with the lack of mental health services. These are issues that definitely need to be addressed and sooner is always better. Will the Garda speak to resources in a very general way? I work on the basis most gardaí would say they need more and better and they need them quicker and faster.

It is the same scenario if you ask police officers anywhere in the world. We will say, "Give us loads of resources and more resources". Intelligent policing is ongoing.

Intelligence-led operations.

Yes. It is all intelligence-led. The data that is out there is significant. We have a greater understanding in modern times of the benefit of data and the analysis of where crimes are happening. We have our own data analysts employed and distributed throughout the organisation. They are a significant asset for us in relation to modern policing which can help us focus even down to the simple issues of where uniformed patrols or checkpoints should be taking place. That is a huge issue. Everybody wants a police officer standing on their street corner or in their estate but it is not possible. A lot the time we have to understand that when you stand on one corner sometimes you are just pushing the problem around the corner.

The people on that corner are usually happy enough with that though.

Exactly. That is what we are at.

I have to thank all of you. I have never met a garda who has not welcomed more resources or a politician who has not wanted more time to speak.

I doubled my time. I was quite impressed.

You have pushed your luck a little now, Deputy Ó Murchú, and it is my job as Vice Chair to call our proceedings to a close. I sincerely thank all of you for the work you do every day and for your contributions not just today but throughout our hearings. It is really important work we are doing and we could not do it without you, so thank you for that.