Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I read the submission from the witnesses. I am someone who protested outside a head shop in Dun Laoghaire until it had to close down due to the level of bad publicity we brought to it. I am also very aware that a beautiful young girl died recently in my constituency, while a number of others were rushed to hospital, after taking something like this outside a nightclub in Dublin city centre.

I hear about education and I am a former school principal, but I believe the parents need to be educated. Everyone talks about the children. There is overload in school and we are telling them what not to do. Often, we are bringing in strangers to tell them about things and provide programmes.

When I was raising my own boys I felt it was my responsibility to warn them against taking drugs. In my view, when it is done in school and when a parent hands over that responsibility to a school, sometimes parents sit back and think the kids will have the information. However, I think that parents need to be targeted. I am sure they are not aware that these drugs are available which look like chewing gum. It is necessary to empower parents, to give them the power to parent their children properly and to know who they are with and what they are doing.