THE Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr Brendan Lynch, has announced a new commission on drugs which will advise the corporation on the treatment and rehabilitation for abusers and on the location of treatment centres.
Announcing the commission at the Drugs in Dublin conference yesterday, Mr Lynch said it followed his promise to do so on becoming Lord Mayor last July.
The nine member commission is: Mr Vincent Doherty, a social worker with the Eastern Health Board (EHB); Ms Grainne Kenny, founder of EURAD (Europe against Drugs); Mr Gerry McAleenan, manager of the Soilse rehabilitation programme at the EHB; Sunday Tribune journalist Ms Djinn Gallagher; Mr Mick Rafferty of Inner City's Organisations Network (ICON); Mr Fergus McCabe, of the EHB and ICON; Mr Ciaran McNamara, of Dublin Corporation's community and environment department; Ms Anna Gibney, of the corporation's housing department; and Ms Carmel Dunne, of the EHB.
The commission will also include a representative of the Assistant Garda Commissioner, Mr Tom King. A chairman/woman has yet to be appointed. Its terms of reference are currently being drafted, and it will meet for the first time at the Mansion House in the coming weeks". Its final report will be presented at the end of May.
Mr Lynch said that while people, many elderly, fearful of crime and violence associated with drugs were victims, "it would not be an exaggeration to say that the city itself is a victim". The prevalence of the problem was "a tragedy which cannot be ignored and will not be ignored by Dublin Corporation", he said.
The Dublin City Manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, said that "one of the most fascinating aspects of economic life in the city at this time is the extent to which certain parts of the city remain stubbornly excluded from the benefits of the economic boom that goes on around them". It was, he thought "almost as if they didn't exist .. . it has no impact on their lives".
It was a fact of life that areas of the city were "seriously run down and require extensive refurbishment", he said. A major programme with capacity to transform those areas would require additional investment,"though not at levels which cannot be met", he said.
He suggested the cost of not doing anything for these areas of Dublin would be infinitely greater in its human/social consequences. What was needed, he said, was "a radical appraisal".
The economic climate now offered "a once off option" to deal with "the scourge of social deprivation", which he described as "a serious threat to the economic and social fabric of the city".
