The Labour Party MEP, Ms Bernie Malone, has called for the doubling of resources to tackle the State's growing heroin addiction problem.
Speaking at a seminar on "The Fight Against Drugs", Ms Malone accused the Government of complacency in the face of a major heroin problem, particularly in inner city areas.
She said: "We are not solving this problem. We are only containing it. I am calling for new preventative and rehabilitative measures. The current preventative services are paltry. We need to invest in childcare, in education and in recreation facilities."
She also called for the setting up of an independent expert group to decide on the most appropriate strategies to tackle drugs in Ireland. "Dublin needs that this issue is on top of everyone's agenda," she said. Mr John Lonergan, Governor of Mountjoy Prison, told the seminar Irish society lacked compassion, tolerance and understanding of heroin addicts.
He said he had recently had to deal with a 19-year-old woman, a heroin addict who had given birth to a two-month premature baby which had to be treated at birth for heroin withdrawal.
Mr Lonergan said there was a shocking lack of understanding among young women prisoners about their bodies. The girl had returned to Mountjoy Prison voluntarily from temporary release because she was distraught. She told Mr Lonergan she had watched the baby "shaking and shivering" and crawling up its blanket in the hospital incubator as it was "detoxed". The girl was suffering terrible guilt, yet, because of her addiction and lack of self-esteem, was incapable of being responsible for herself or the baby.
Mr Filip Roux, from the European Drugs Observatory in Lisbon, told the seminar that while levels of AIDS among injecting drug abusers were levelling out, the recorded cases of hepatitis "may have serious health implications". He told the seminar that up to 20 per cent of young adults in Europe were using cannabis and the use of amphetamines was continuing to rise among young people. Ecstasy use was no longer rising, cocaine use was rising modestly and crack cocaine was a "limited phenomenon". Heroin use appeared to be relatively constant, he said.