Radical social change and "a fundamental rethink" is required if the problem of heroin addiction is to be tackled, the governor of Mountjoy prison, Mr John Lonergan, has said.
Certain areas of Dublin, which experienced very high levels of social and economic deprivation, had to be "completely removed" by putting in extra investment to greatly enhance these districts, he said.
Mr Lonergan was speaking at the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, last night on the theme of Drugs and Alcohol in Irish Society. Heroin addiction, he said, was "the most serious and devastating of addictions" and the three main elements to it were human, social and economic. A solution would only be achieved by tackling all three.
He said heroin addiction was confined almost exclusively to a small number of disadvantaged areas. "People are being damaged as a result of their social and economic conditions," he said. Research carried out in Mountjoy had shown 75 per cent of Dublin prisoners came from six clearly identifiable areas, or pockets of disadvantage. All of these districts were "infested with heroin".
The percentage of prisoners who had a heroin addiction history had grown from 31 per cent in 1986 to 67 per cent in 1996. He said it was a "social class addiction" and that as a society we were continuing to develop communities where only "certain classes of people were housed". Professionals who worked in these communities tended to live in other areas and the message to the people who lived there was that they were "inferior".
"Why do we continue to sustain these places and keep them there? I believe that as a society we should completely remove them by enhancing these areas." The crucial time to help children was between the ages of 10 and 15. "Many are ruined in terms of addiction by the age of 15," he said.
Mr Lonergan said there was not enough focus on the causes of heroin addiction. There was also an over-reliance on methadone in helping addicts. This was not treatment but a "harm reduction strategy".
The real extent of the heroin problem was not known because resources had never been provided. "There is a huge amount of confusion and lack of knowledge and I believe there is a subconscious resistance because we don't want to know," he said.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, who also spoke at the summer school last night, said plans for Campus Ireland should be scrapped in favour of "a radical, decentralised sports policy" which would provide a new focal point for young people and discourage them from abusing drugs and alcohol.
He believed sport had the potential to become an attractive alternative to the present youth culture "which is centred on drink and drugs".
Recent research in Trinity College indicated the problem in Ireland was far worse than in many other European countries with almost a third of 12- to 18year-olds describing themselves as regular drinkers. The overall cost of alcohol abuse to the Exchequer in 1999 was £1.7 billion. More than 5,000 admissions to psychiatric hospitals each year were due to alcohol abuse.
Mr Noonan said drink-driving remained a major cause of the carnage on our roads and the number of drink-driving offences over the August bank holiday weekend was double the level for the same weekend last year. The growing problem of late-night street violence was also directly related to the greater availability of alcohol.
He said "a major cultural shift" was needed if young people were to be discouraged from using alcohol and other drugs. "We need to provide alternative outlets and lifestyles for young people which can act as a counterbalance to the attractions of drink," he said.
The Government's plan to spend £1 billion on a single "largely unneeded sports project" caused huge disillusionment among thousands of people struggling to provide sporting opportunities to young people.
The "gigantic expenditure" projected for Campus Ireland had to be contrasted with the lack of modern sporting facilities in suburbs, towns and villages. "Just imagine what an allocation of £10 million to each county would do in providing such facilities and the total would be 25 per cent of what is proposed for Campus Ireland," he said.