Sir, - The recent upsurge of deaths from heroin abuse in the south-west inner city is alarming, but it should not hide the fact that over a long period of time a number of young people have been dying each week from the same cause in the same area.
The debate about pure/bad heroin is not new. Quite a number of years ago at a public meeting, when people complained about bad heroin, one well-known drug pusher got up and said: "You will find no rat poison in my heroin. The heroin I sell is pure." He was applauded by some people in the hall.
The drug issue has divided communities about the best way to solve it, but all agree on one thing: in areas where drug abuse is at its worst, people are disadvantaged and the areas have been neglected for years.
Dublin can be heaven, if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, had the right parents and a good education, live in a nice house in a select area of your choice, are in the professions, know how to work the tax system and if you are found out get one of your colleagues to defend you in court with the money you should have paid in tax in the first place, and knowing that your chances of ending up in "the Joy" are a million to one.
On the other hand, Dublin can be hell if your parents are poor, unwell and unable to cope with life, if you live in certain parts of the inner city, where drugs are the order of the day, you did not complete your secondary education, are long-term unemployed or in a low-paid job, have no control over your future, feel that you are a second-class citizen and know that if you offend you will end up in Johnnie Lonergan's, where you will meet some of your friends, neighbours and former schoolmates.
Belfast is divided into Protestant and Catholic ghettos, Dublin between privileged and underprivileged Catholics. If your parents are native Dubliners from the inner city or from an out-of-town local authority estate, you are less likely to complete second-level education than if your parents came from rural Ireland or elite parts of our capital city. It is a disgrace that, after almost 80 years of native government, over 150,000 people are educationally deprived in the Dublin area alone.
Why did the State deliberately set out to create a two-tier education system? Did the religious orders - who helped the poor when there was no money in primary education - contribute to the situation by maintaining private education for the privileged at the expense of the disadvantaged? Did O'Malley's free secondary scheme - which has done so much for many people - fail to provide an adequate education for a significant number of students because it was not geared to their needs? Why did so many leave school unable read or write, unqualified or unprepared for life? In fact they were trained to do nothing and be nothing.
Coming out of the Gaiety on Saturday night after a poor Plough and the Stars, looking at young people spaced out of their minds, sitting in doorways begging for money for a meal or another fix, I wondered how Sean O'Casey would describe today's Dublin. In his plays he pointed out the futility of war. Today he might write about the lost and forgotten generation that all can see but not enough people care about. - Yours, etc.,
John Gallagher, The Coombe, Dublin 8.