Sir, - Killinarden - population 7,000 - proclaimed to the media and to various bodies that we had a serious drug problem here in Tallaght. We were always told that we hadn't. We appealed to the Health Board for facilities to deal with our drug users only to be told that there were no facilities in the area and that there were no short-term plans to do anything about it. In desperation local people set up a methadone programme. They are now dealing with 30 addicts.
Through the home-school liaison project a schools prevention strategy was set up whereby groups of parents brought the idea of a drug-free life-style to the schools.
These two projects still didn't put an end to the selling of drugs by people in the area. So we, KAAD-Killenarden Action Against Drugs - set up a community watch in the five estates that make up the area. The result is that drug-pushing has almost ceased within the area.
The vast majority of that work is financed by the bingo run by the community centre every Saturday night and by people giving of their time, of their out of pocket expenses and from door to, door contributions.
So you can well understand how we are incensed by the lack of back-up that we are receiving from the statutory bodies that are funded by the State to do these very things. Time has shown that these bodies have failed dismally to react in time to the problems that are there. It is not that the people in these bodies haven't the competence or the skills or the concern, it's just that a paralysis seems to set in when they are asked to work in partnership with communities plagued by the problem of drug addiction.
The tragic death of Veronica Guerin has brought home to the State that these problems cannot be confined to working-class estates. How long more will the people that control the purse strings deny us proper financing so that we can deal with these problems - not of our own making - and so contribute to a better climate for all the people of our island? Yours, etc.,
Chairperson, Killinarden Action Against Drugs, c/o Community Centre, Killinarden, Tallaght, Dublin 24.