The Interview: Pat Carey TD

Pat Carey has only been our Minister for Drugs Strategy since June 20, but he’s already getting paranoid! As the 59-year-old Kerryman leads me into his spacious new office at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs on the Mespil Road, he casually mentions that he’s asked his press officer to sit in on our interview. Eh?

This has only ever happened to me once before. When I interviewed Mary Lou McDonald a few years back, a surly, curly-haired Sinn Fein guy sat and glared at me throughout. Carey’s long-haired press minder, Layla, is prettier and far less intimidating, but also much more thorough. Pulling up a seat beside me, she places a small recorder next to my own and hits the record button.
It could be that Carey doesn’t trust Hot Press. Or maybe he just doesn’t trust himself. First elected to the Dail 10 years ago (on his third attempt), this is the Dublin North West TD’s first-ever ministerial gig. The former vice-principal has now turned vice-politician, succeeding the Taoiseach’s brother Noel Ahern as Minister of State with special responsibility for Drugs Strategy and Community Affairs.
Born in Castlemaine, Co. Kerry, on November 9 1947, Carey was educated at the Presentation Brothers College at Milltown. Following his Leaving, he trained as a school teacher in Drumcondra, and studied further at UCD and Trinity. Having taught at primary level for some years, he eventually became vice-principal of a Finglas school in the 1980s.
He first entered local politics in 1985 when he was elected to Dublin City Council for the Finglas area. Although elected as TD for Dublin North West in the 1997 election, he remained on the council until 2003. He retained his Dail seat in the 2002 election, albeit with a significantly reduced vote.
By no means considered a sure thing in the 2007 election, Carey surprised everyone by polling a personal best of 7,211 first preferences, taking the constituency’s last seat on the third count.
Balding, affable and softly spoken, he tells me that his teaching years have taught him one essential rule for political life: “Don’t take things personally – just ride the waves as best you can.”

OLAF TYARANSEN: I know you were a teacher in Dublin for many years, but you also got heavily involved in local community work, didn’t you?
PAT CAREY: I got involved in community work very early on, and it was interesting because, when I got appointed to this job, I said to a colleague of mine that I’m back where I started. Because I first dipped my toe into the water running a youth club for young lads who were drinking cider out the fields at back of the school and dabbling in hash.
Do you have children yourself?
No, I’m not married.
Even so, as a school vice principal, you’d be familiar with the way kids operate.
Ah yeah. I had an extensive involvement in youth work, both at a Dublin level and at national level. Myself and Joe Duffy – the Joe Duffy – and a couple of others… in fact, Richard Downes of Morning Ireland was involved in youth work at the same time. We set up summer projects in Finglas and Ballymun and elsewhere in the Dublin area. And progressively I got more involved.
In what way?
In 1979, I was appointed by the then Parliamentary Secretary, Jim Tunney, as one of a three-person committee to review the state of the youth service in Ireland. This was in the late ‘70s and there were very few professional youth workers, and you simply couldn’t get government of any hue to acknowledge that youth work was a legitimate part of the education process. Then I was elected to Dublin City Council in 1985. And your work as a public representative exposes you to a lot of issues.
Well, there must have been a lot of smack around at that time.
There was. This is not a latter-day phenomenon. It was more benign in those days, but if we knew then what we know now, we would’ve maybe been quicker to put in place measures to give alternatives to young people. I was always campaigning for better facilities, but there wasn’t a lot of political commitment and there was a scarcity of resources as well. So it was very much a case of making do.
As Minister with responsibility for the drug issue, do you see yourself as Ireland’s drug tsar?
No. Don’t forget that the National Drug Strategy was first mooted in 1996, when the current leader of the Labour Party, Pat Rabbitte, was involved at the cabinet table. And then when Fianna Fail took over in 1997, they began to develop a National Drug Strategy. Which was I suppose an agreed platform which included, very importantly, the community and voluntary sector. People who were involved at the coalface who knew what the issues were, but didn’t have access to the resources. And the National Drug Strategy brought in some money, following very clearly stated programmes which were submitted...
And yet 10 years on, the problem is far worse than it was then!
It’s a different type of problem, Olaf! Certainly we have a problem and the challenges I think will always be there. We’re now going through the second phase of the National Drug Strategy, where the issues now are onto rehabilitation. That’s something that wasn’t talked about to the same extent before. I was in Cork yesterday looking at some projects down there, and I was in Limerick there the week before, and I’ve been around nearly all of the Dublin area in the last month, just meeting with people. I’ve always made a point of meeting service users. I want to hear what they think the issues are. I mean everybody is now talking about cocaine being in every corner of Ireland – and it probably is. But it’s bringing in an entirely new kind of user, who has a 9-5 job, or even a better job than a 9-5 job, and the issues that that throws up. But other drugs haven’t gone away. Heroin hasn’t gone away. Ecstasy hasn’t gone away. And what you now have is poly drug-use, where basically there’s a mixture of whatever is available. And the dangers being posed by those concoctions, I think nobody can anticipate.
Researchers are completing an all-Ireland prevalence study at the moment, and it’ll be interesting to see how the pattern has changed. But there’s a real need now to invest into how we can help those who are trapped in poly drug-use. And that ranges from alcohol right through to cocaine and whatever else you’re having.
What about those poly drug-users – such as myself – who don’t feel trapped in anything at all? Just recreational drug-users who grew up in a recreational drug culture. Do you not think that by keeping all of these substances illegal, you’re making it far more dangerous for everybody?
No. I think in the cold light of day, if we were starting all over again, I doubt very much whether alcohol or tobacco would be legalised.
What about cannabis?
It’s easy to say that cannabis is a benign drug. In relative terms, yes. Ok. I mean, every drug in relative terms is. But there isn’t a single drug, Olaf, that you come across – whether it’s a synthetically produced drug or a naturally produced drug – that doesn’t have some harmful side effects to somebody. So you might say you’re a recreational cocaine user. But the side effect of that, to be very blunt about it, is you have access to high quality cocaine [I wish! – OT]. The people in my constituency have no such luxury. Their cocaine is adulterated with anything from talcum powder to cement.
Surely that’s one of the reasons why it should be legalised?
No! You and those people who are using it for recreational purposes are fuelling a drugs trade, and in turn giving rise to gangland killings and so on. So I couldn’t stand over, and I don’t think anybody could stand over the legalising of it. I was talking to a person the other day who would be an advocate of legalising all drugs, and I said to him, “Well, what would you do?” He said, “We can do it now and we probably need to debate it” – and I’ve no problem with a debate – “but it may be the next generation or the generation after, but there isn’t any possibility at the moment.” And I don’t think we should even hold out that as a hope to anybody that the current range of classified drugs would be declassified.
What’s your opinion on Gordon Brown’s recent suggestion that cannabis should be reclassified from C to B in the UK?
Well, you see the British situation and the Ireland one isn’t analogous. For a start, even with the proposed reclassification by Gordon Brown, the penalties here are more severe. Now, on the other hand, the discretion allowed to Gardaí, who meet people who have cannabis for personal use – they have a good deal more discretion than even the police forces in the UK would have with the reclassification that Gordon Brown is talking about. So we’re not talking about like with like. There’s a lot wrong with Irish society, but I think others from other European countries and elsewhere are now looking at the way the drug policy and drug strategy has been approached here as a good way forward.
I don’t really see how you could possibly say that! We have a nightmare drug situation that...
Hold on! Hold on! You check your facts! In terms of cocaine use, we are way below Spain, the UK, most European countries.
That’s not true! What about all those recent reports saying we’re the biggest nation of cokeheads in Europe!
That’s not the reports! You check the reports! It’s the United Nations report I’m talking about. We have come from a very low base, and the level of increase from a low base is quite high – again, we can get you the report if you want. The level of use of cocaine in particular is down at the bottom of the league. I’m not suggesting we should go up any higher and...
Are you talking per capita?
Per capita, yeah. And what we are aiming to do here is – and part of the drug strategy which I took over the present phase of – is the need to raise awareness. The first conference on any form of drugs that I attended as Minister was one that was held in Croke Park, a couple of days after the famous ‘Coke Park’ incidents were reported. And I wasn’t even fully aware of this, that intravenous use of cocaine – adulterated cocaine but cocaine nonetheless – can cause frightful physical deformities, up to and including...
Amputations.
Yes. And then the whole issue of physical and mental health damage. I don’t think we know the extent of it at all. And there isn’t a methadone for cocaine.
But methadone is a seriously addictive drug itself.
Even so, there isn’t a counter for cocaine. So what we’re trying to do here, and I think it’s being done fairly well, is... it’s interesting the amount of expertise that’s being built in the area of counselling and alternative therapies and holistic medicine and that kind of thing, that is being pursued here – particularly in the area of cocaine addiction. And I think there is a body of expertise growing here. A lot of them, by the way, are people who have been through this themselves. I’ve met project workers in every centre that I’ve gone to, who’ve been through the mill themselves and they’re bringing their own life experience to bear on their approach to things. And they acknowledge you’re never going to be completely recovered. It is one day at a time and you need hand-holding all the time.
There are issues which are only now being addressed; people who are coming off addiction, we can’t allow them to go back on the streets so we need to address accommodation issues. Employers are increasingly telling people, “Look, I can’t let you go in, in that state. You can’t drive a forklift and I can’t let you near anything. So would you go off and get yourself sorted.” And they’re coming into the community-based services. But what that is throwing up is they can’t come in between nine and five because they’re working. So what we’re going to do is make arrangements for these services to be available after-hours and at weekends, when people need them.
Have you ever experimented with any illegal drugs yourself?
No I haven’t. I never found even cigarettes of any interest. I love my pint. I really love my pint. Except I was diagnosed with Type-One diabetes 10 years ago when I was first elected, so even that is restricted at this stage.
Were you a heavy drinker?
No, I wasn’t. But as I say, like everybody else, I would’ve loved my few pints.
Did you ever drive home after a few pints?
I didn’t, no. Well, sorry… after a few pints… well, I would have I suppose, like everybody else at the time when the restrictions were… [pauses]. I would have driven a couple of times, but you learn very quickly that you don’t do that. I was also a late convert to driving so, for years and years, I used the buses and I used to cycle and that kind of stuff. Though you wouldn’t cycle very far nowadays with a few pints on you, I can tell you!
What was your reaction to Brian Cowen’s recent admission to hotpress that he’d smoked a few joints in his youth?
Well… [shrugs]… there are lots of people that I would’ve known. I was in UCD in the late ‘60s, and the pubs in Merrion Row... there are now high profile people in the entertainment and in the journalistic world that I would’ve known and been relatively friendly with, and they were involved [in drug-taking].
Were you never even tempted to try a spliff?
No, I would’ve had absolutely no interest, good, bad or indifferent. I was exposed to Woodbines when I was in primary school – the usual one behind the school – and they nearly killed me.
Would you describe yourself as religious?
I’d be... [pauses]. I’d have a fairly firmly-grounded faith, without it being awfully well thought through, to be quite honest. I’d be a practicing Roman Catholic, for example. I’ve had my rows with clergymen over the years and we’ve agreed to differ on an awful lot of things. Some of my best friends were involved in the institution of the Roman Catholic Church and they’ve left their ministry because they found the limitations were too restrictive. But I’d be quite a committed Roman Catholic, I’d hope, in the thinking sense.
Do you think that drug-taking is immoral?
No. I’d prefer if people didn’t take drugs, but I’m not here to judge other people. Human nature being what it is, people will be tempted to experiment with all sorts of different lifestyle options. It’s not for me to judge.
Why aren’t you in the Department of Health?
Because this is what I was asked to do [laughs].
I mean in terms of what you are doing. Isn’t drug addiction a health issue?
Oh, I see what you mean. This department [Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs] coordinates the implementation of the National Drugs Strategy. In terms of money, it delivers the smallest amount of money from this department, for example. The Department of Health and the HSE would be the primary providers of a lot of the funding.
So what do you do?
The National Drugs Strategy supports pilot-type projects. Ok? And then the successful projects are mainstreamed. So they go into, for example, the education sector, maybe local policing, the HSE area. I mean, the most recent report on rehabilitation from cocaine makes a number of recommendations – like in relation to an increase in the numbers of detox beds and so on. Now it’s my job, along with Minister Mary Harney, to ensure that they are provided. And to be fair, I met her last week and we’re making a joint proposal in that regard to the Minister for Finance in the Autumn. And the proposals that are incorporated in the Proposals for Government – it’s my job to pursue, sometimes impatiently, those proposals. I won’t be sitting around here twiddling my thumbs in four years time saying, ‘Oh, I was supposed to have more therapists recruited by whatever it was’.
What’s your feeling on Mary Harney remaining on as Minister for Health, seeing as the PDs were pretty much wiped-out in the election?
She’s a gutsy minister. Don’t forget – I don’t know if you can remember back that far – she pursued the smoking ban in this city when it was neither popular nor profitable.
That’s really not the type of thing I’d applaud…
No – a different smoking ban. The ban on smoking coal. You don’t remember those awful evenings in winter where you could hardly see in front of you. She was Junior Minister with Padraig Flynn at the time and she pursued that. She’s a gutsy minister. Mary Harney is trying to pursue a reform of the health service and it’s on behalf of the government that she’s doing it.
You were involved in a minor FF backbench revolt a couple of years ago.
Well, you see backbenchers are the conscience of the party. And if backbenchers are to do the job that they’re elected to do they’ve gotta be constantly nibbling at the heels of ministers, just to keep them on their toes. Now that’s an oxymoron, but you know what I mean! So I was unashamedly involved a number of years ago in trying to ensure that the social policy of the government at the time was more reflective of my own background.
You mentioned the conscience of the party. What are your feelings on the proven – and alleged – financial irregularities of several prominent former and current Fianna Fail members?
I would never be happy with the financial irregularities of anyone. Now, the various tribunals and tribunal reports are going through what they have to go through. And this isn’t evading anything, but we shouldn’t prejudge the outcome of any tribunal.
It’s public knowledge that Tom Gilmartin gave Pee Flynn 50 grand as a donation to the party which was never passed on. And we know that Bertie Ahern hasn’t demanded it back. I can’t understand that one myself...
Political parties, remember, aren’t corporate registered bodies. And there’s been a culture up until recently – and remember it’s only recently that the ethics legislation that is currently being enforced and on an annual basis is being tightened up and made more rigorous… I mean, I got a letter this morning from the Secretary General listing my obligations since I was appointed as a Minister, and I just had a glance through them and I thought, ‘Well I think most of those I’ve already done, but there’s a couple I better check to be sure that I have done them’. But there’s an entirely different culture, Olaf, here now to what there was many, many years ago.
Not that many years ago.
Well, Fianna Fail has been in power since 1997 without any interruption. But we have never shirked from putting anybody, including the Taoiseach, in front of the appropriate scrutiny. And whatever flows out of that, well, that’s the consequences of our decision. In relation to Padraig Flynn, none of those allegations or whatever have, in fact, been incorporated into a report at the moment, which is only ongoing, and it’ll be some years yet before it is.
By which time it’ll be ancient history and nobody will care!
They will care!
Is there an intensely competitive atmosphere amongst the TDs in Fianna Fail generally?
While in some ways there is great cameraderie in politics, it is also very, very lonely in that at the end of the day, you’re looking after number one – and number one happens to be yourself. You build up great friendships and I have done – some of them across other parties by the way. I’m a great friend of Michael D’s, for example. We traversed Palestine and Israel and places like that together, and we’d hold similar views on it. There are rivalries but I think people are big enough to know that some people are more successful at gaining advancement quicker.
Recently in Hot Press, Dr. John Neil (the Archbishop of Dublin) slammed the Irish government for ignoring the moral issues surrounding allowing the US to use Shannon Airport to transport troops to Iraq. What are your thoughts on that?
I think it’s no harm that church leaders from time to time prick our conscience a bit, but on the Shannon issue I believe that our policy is appropriate. I don’t go along with the argument that we are facilitating a war in Iraq.
Earlier you said that my personal drug use was facilitating gangland crime. Using the same logic, surely by allowing the airport to be used to transport troops, we’re facilitating the murder of Iraqi citizens?
I’ve a lot of reservations about the pursuit of the war in Iraq. I think the people in Iraq are the important consideration now. What we need to try and do is get those that are participants out there to work on a form of governance that is appropriate to the people of Iraq. What we need to try and avoid is that Iraq fractures and that the whole neighbourhood will also fracture. I strongly suspect that if George Bush was starting all over again, he would have done things differently. But we are where we are. Vietnam is something that spun out of control too, but it had to be brought to a conclusion – and the Iraq situation has to be brought to a conclusion.
There’s a story on the front page of the Irish Times today about a member of the Italian Christian Democrats being caught with a prostitute. What’s your opinion of the idea of legalising prostitution here?
I think there’s a need for us to look again at the whole sex industry here. Ruhama, which is a very good voluntary organisation, which I’m nearly certain is funded by this department, have done a lot of work in relation to it. You link issues like human trafficking, sex tourism and the sex trade. Now there’s a need for us to sign up fully and uncompromisingly to anti-human trafficking measures, and there’s a campaign going on about that at the moment.
But whatever about human trafficking, there are a lot of Irish girls – mainly drug addicts – plying their trade just down the road from this very office. Do you not think we should just bite the bullet and allow people to set up legal brothels with regular health inspections for the protection of both the girls and their clients?
I don’t know whether we’d be ready for it. By the way, some of the local drug task forces are working with some of the prostitutes in the whole area of needle exchange and that kind of area, and providing advice on condom use and that kind of thing. But I think we need to have a mature debate on how we handle the sex industry here and for the welfare of the women who are involved in it and the dangers they are constantly put under. I think some people don’t understand that. So I think a mature debate on harm reduction to that group of workers needs to be engaged in.
What’s your opinion on same sex marriage?
Civil unions I think are pretty well inevitable. The issue of inheritance rights and so on, I’m not sure that they’re even fully clarified yet. But I’d have an open mind in relation to it, to be honest.
Going back to the drug issue, Liam Kelly, the Fianna Fail councillor who was caught on camera snorting cocaine last year...
Alleged to be snorting cocaine.
Has he been readmitted to the party?
No. Unless it happened in the last couple of days.
I’m pretty certain I read something about it last week.
Well, it’s inaccurate what you read. I understand that he has met with the committee of inquiry. I think what needs to happen next is the Gardaí have to say that their inquiries have come to a conclusion, and if there are no criminal charges then it would be very difficult not to allow Liam Kelly to resume his membership of the party and to continue his work as a public representative. He has admitted, by the way, that he has alcohol problems and I think he has been treated for those.
Alcohol problems are quite common in politics, aren’t they? All those functions and receptions...
There’s a lot less time for drinking than you’d think, I can tell you! If you spend your time drinking in politics, you’ll find you’ll be an ex-politician fairly quick!
Well, it didn’t happen to Jim McDaid, did it?
Well, that’s an alcoholic issue. The Irish electorate are very forgiving when it comes to alcohol. They recognise that somebody might have a character flaw or something like that. But they don’t crucify everybody.
You suggested recently that all mobile phones should be registered in an attempt to curb drug-dealing.
No, I didn’t suggest it. It’s in the programme for government. In the course of an interview, I drew attention to the fact that there is a proposal in the programme for government that we would investigate that. And then everyone ran away with the notion that we were introducing legislation. What we are going to do is engage with the Attorney General’s office, the Department of Justice and the [mobile phone] providers with a view exploring how it can be done. I got a letter last week from one of the providers who said that they’d like to talk to us about how it could be done. Don’t forget, in many cases at the moment, if you are going to get a pay-as-you-go phone, you’re given the option of registering or not.
The Irish Independent’s Kevin Myers had a serious pop at you over that particular proposal...
I actually didn’t read it, but I heard about it.
I was just wondering was that your first experience of being pilloried in the national press?
Ah no, sure John Drennan regularly has a go at me. I don’t read him either! [Laughs] But I’ve been in politics since 1985 in one way or another, so it’s not as if I’m a neophyte in this regard.
Was there any sniggering on the Fianna Fail benches when Eamon Ryan brought his bicycle over to New York?
I’ll lay my cards on the table and say that I’m very friendly with Eamon Ryan. And I was on the council with John Gormley. And the Greens' secretary general is a constituent of mine, whom I have known for many years through youth work.
Okay, so you’re not going to slag the Greens for me!
I don’t feel the need to slag the Greens. I know where they’re coming from. Their primary focus up to now would have been on environmental issues. But I listened to Eamon Ryan this morning on Morning Ireland on the whole issue of licensing of the oil industry. If you didn’t know it was Eamon Ryan from the Green Party, you wouldn’t be wondering. There was nothing terribly radical in what he said.
You mean there was nothing terribly Green about it. Half their own party think that they’ve sold out by going into government with Fianna Fail.
If you look at the environmental policies of Fianna Fail, they were not that far away and we would suggest maybe they were more tightly drawn and more clearly written than maybe the Greens were when they were in opposition. But I think the Greens are freshening up the present government. There’s a different emphasis and things are slightly more nuanced. But going back to Eamon, I don’t mind how people travel to work. I don’t mind how people get around New York. I take the subway myself when I’m in New York, because I couldn’t be bothered travelling any other way. The Greens are practical people like everybody else.
As a Kerryman, will you miss Joe Higgins from the Dail?
I think it’s a pity that Joe Higgins is gone. I would have little in common with his politics, but there's no doubt he brought particular insights to bear. He has a way with words. I’m hoping he’ll get back into politics. He has a passion for politics – and he’s good at it.
You’re considered to be on the left wing of Fianna Fail.
Apparently.
Who’s over there with you?
Bertie [laughs]. Believe it or not, people like John McGuinness I’ve always had a great regard for. Sean Ardagh. Celia Keaveney, who just got elected to the Senate. Peter Kelleher. Brian Cowen. Brian Cowen’s a superb guy.
Do you think he’ll be the next leader of Fianna Fail?
I think so, yeah.
What do you hope to have achieved in terms of dealing with the Irish drug problem by the end of your term in office?
What I’d like to have achieved with the people I’m working with who are out there, including service users, is that there would be a greater awareness of the fact that the issue of drugs and drug misuse is with us and will always be there. We need to put programmes in place which will deal with the people who are misusing drugs, but also programmes in place to ensure that those who are now four and five year olds won’t end up automatically in drug treatment centres. That we will have a range of services and facilities provided for them, which will ensure that they have alternatives. And built around that is, I suppose, a recognition that Ireland is a very successful, quite wealthy nation, but those who are extremely well-off need to look after those who are not so well-off. The rising tide doesn’t always lift all boats. I’ll be an advocate for those who are maybe marooned or stuck.
Or those whose boats are so laden down with bales of cannabis that they’re too heavy to rise!
Ha, ha! Well, I can tell you this much. The people on the Aran Islands have lost their touch to have allowed cannabis to be floating around there for the last 10 years, and not found a use for it yet! [Laughs]