McDowell urges judges to reflect on drug terms

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell urged judges to implement the minimum jail sentences for drugs offences. He also strongly criticised people who use drugs recreationally.

He told the Dáil last night that there was no point in him lecturing or waving a finger at the judiciary in a way which was hostile or whatever.

"I prefer to stand up and say, on behalf of the members of this House, that we appeal to the judiciary to reflect upon the law which this House made.

"We appeal to the judiciary to reflect on this: it is laid down in the law of our land that only in exceptional and specific circumstances should the possession of drugs in large amounts not be visited by a 10-year sentence," the Minister said.

Mr McDowell said it was not acceptable for people to be found with quantities of drugs, with street values not of €30,000, but well over €1 million, and be given three, four, five and six-year sentences.

He said that the rate of implementation of the minimum sentences laid down by the House had been as low as 6 per cent.

"There was a period of time when 94 per cent of sentences under the relevant section were less than the 10-year minimum. That has changed and it is now 79 per cent."

Mr McDowell said that anybody who smoked a joint, snorted a line, took e-tabs, or took any form of hard drug, and thought it a private matter, was a fundamental part of the problem.

"Anybody who in public argues that it is somehow acceptable to consume prohibited drugs, and to be in possession of them in small quantities, is suffering not simply from moral confusion but a complete absence of a critical faculty of any kind."

He said that in a recent Late Late Show somebody had said that it was all right if you wanted to kill yourself with heroin and argued why society should make it available.

Some people, he said, including one aspirant to membership of the House, had argued for the legalisation of drugs.

"Firstly, this ignores the reality that we are obliged by European law to criminalise the possession of hard drugs, So it is a non-starter from the very beginning," he said.

The Minister said that while this might have "a quick rush of popular approval attached to it, it is as illusory and as empty an argument as you are likely to get".

Mr McDowell warned that gardaí could not win the war on drugs if people were willing to consume the product.

The Minister was speaking during a resumed debate on a Sinn Féin Private Member's motion calling for the appointment of a minister of state with sole responsibility for drug-related issues.

Seán Crowe (SF, Dublin South West) said that his part of Dublin had suffered massively from the drugs problem.

"I have witnessed family, friends and neighbours succumb to its devastating impact. I have attended too many wakes and funerals."

He had seen talented and energetic young people turned into living wrecks by drug addiction.