Parliamentary Question: Drug Courts

2nd December 2003

304. Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the evidence upon which he is satisfied that mandatory drug testing can play an important role in the overall strategy for tackling the scourge of heroin use among prisoners, when research published by the UK Home Office in 1998 found that nearly nine in ten imprisoned heroin users were not deterred from heroin use due to mandatory testing. [29172/03]

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. McDowell): I refer to Parliamentary Question No. 595, which I answered on 4 November 2003, and would like to inform the Deputy that my position as set out in that response remains the same. Mandatory drug testing can at an individual level identify those persons engaged in the use of intravenous drugs within the prison environment, and can at an institutional level provide prison management with important information on the levels of drug taking in prisons.  I am satisfied that drug testing has a valuable contribution to make to the strategy for tackling heroin use among prisoners.