Debate contribution: Addiction and Drug-related Deaths
Debate contribution by Lord Elliott on .
- MLA
- Lord Elliott
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 23 April 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Private Members' Business
- Heading
- Addiction and Drug-related Deaths
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4485571
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the Members who brought forward the motion. It is very much appreciated and extremely relevant in today's society. Like others, I, obviously, sympathise deeply with people who have been impacted by the issue. You probably cannot realise the impact until you are in that situation yourself; the individual who is finding it difficult to cope with either drugs or alcohol — or, indeed, any other addiction — or their family, because they go through a journey as well. There is a journey when they hear of their loved one's being addicted to drugs or alcohol. Then, there is a further journey — we have heard about it a couple of times today — if someone takes money off their family members, or senior family members or grandparents have to go and pay off the drug dealers. Indeed, then, there is a journey when someone passes away due to addiction. That is a huge, difficult journey for that family. As MLAs, some of us hear about it from our constituents, but until you are in that situation as a family, I do not think that you can comprehend it fully. I was interested in the particular comments of a couple of Members. The first was Carál Ní Chuilín, who, if I quote her correctly, said "drug dealers are death dealers". Other Members mentioned that we have to deal with the dealers as well. We can deal with addictions, but we must take the dealers out of society as well. That is a very important issue.
The second issue was raised by Miss McAllister, who said that people only get angry or annoyed when they see drug overdoses or deaths in public. I know exactly what she means, but I think that the family members and friends who witness those events behind the scenes are a huge issue. They are going through huge trauma, which they sometimes cannot talk about or disclose to the rest of their family or to their friends or colleagues. That is a massive stress on those people, and they need support and help. I fully support the motion and the issues raised in it. We heard from the Minister, who widely supports it. While we are not saying in our amendment that Belfast is not the proper place for a rehabilitation unit, there may be other locations for it. I heard a couple of Members, including Mr Durkan, talk about Northlands in Londonderry. That is a very important centre in the north-west, but it is a regional centre that provides a huge amount of support and help for the wider community. We are just saying, "Don't write off those other areas". Maybe we will have a couple of regional centres, because that is what is required. You only have to look at the resources that are tied up in Justice, Education and Health to realise that it is clearly a cross-departmental situation. I had the privilege of being in an emergency department for some hours quite recently. The Minister of Health kindly got me special treatment and made me stay there for in the region of 24 to 30 hours. I witnessed a lot of comings and goings in that time, including people coming in who clearly had difficulties with addiction. Most of those people were accompanied by police officers, usually at least two or three. In a 20-hour period when I was in that emergency department, there were at least four individuals who were accompanied by four different groups of police officers. The amount of security force and health sector resources that were tied up at that time was enormous. This has been a good debate, and it has been positive in the sense that we all want to do something. I listened to Mr Carroll's concern that nothing will happen, but there is a willingness there, which I support. Therefore, I commend the motion and the amendment.
661 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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