Debate contribution: Drug-related Deaths: East Antrim

Debate contribution by Mr Colin McGrath on 27 May 2025.

MLA

Mr Colin McGrath

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

27 May 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Drug-related Deaths: East Antrim

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4972706

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I will not detain Members too long. On behalf of the SDLP, I support our having the debate. My motivation for speaking this evening comes from reflecting on my time as a youth worker nine years ago. There was a group of about 20 or 25 young people who grew up through the centre. They had been there for about 15 years by the time that I left, so I knew them all well from watching them grow up and progress. They are now young adults, and I bump into them regularly around the town where I still live. I bumped into one of them in January. She told me about the work that she was doing in the community; she always had time to stop and talk. Several days later, she died in the very circumstances that we are talking about. The circumstances that lead people into those situations are one thing, but the fact that they can stay in those situations is another. I feel strongly about that and want to see action taken on it. I welcome the fact that Members have spoken about the cross-party, cross-Ministerial nature of responsibility for that, because I was concerned at the start that it would all be lumped on the Health Minister as the Minister who will respond to the debate. All the approaches that Members have referenced have to be taken because we must tackle this on all fronts. We cannot look at it from a one-dimensional perspective. When I started as a youth worker, drug education was a big part of our work, but, when I look at youth services now, I see that that is barely part of it. Youth services have completely changed, and it may be that, in those services, we are missing opportunities to do some of the basics. There is another conundrum, which I have heard about on a number of occasions, that is really difficult to balance. The "dogs in the street" were mentioned. Sometimes, the dogs in the street in our communities do know who is taking the drugs. It is reported to the police, but months and months or maybe even a year or more later, nothing has been done about it. I can understand that, potentially, the police are looking to go further up the line. They get that bit of information and pursue it to get the bigger dealers in the community. However, if you are a family member of somebody who has died, that is tough. It is tough to think that your loved one is sacrificed whilst a different aim is being pursued. That may prevent many more people from getting access to drugs, but it should still be better explained or better detailed to people, because seeing their loved one pass away and the police response being short of what they expect or hope is a bitter pill for those individuals to swallow. We need to use every opportunity that we can, through the various Departments, to tackle poverty in our community and to use our education and youth services to raise young people's self-esteem and self-worth and give them the resilience to say no to the things that are being offered in the community. We need to have a justice response towards those who continue to break the rules and provide these things, often to our young adults and younger people in our community, that challenges them right where they are doing it so that it is removed from our community. I want to see continued work on that. I welcome the fact that two Ministers have said that they are up for doing something, but I would definitely love to see a cross-Executive response to this. I will continue to ask for that in memory of the face that I saw when I left the youth centre nine years ago and that I saw down the street at the beginning of January and who, unfortunately, is no longer with us.

667 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:37 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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