Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not me. We are lawmakers. When passing laws, we must ensure they stand up to scrutiny and we have to be able answer people. There are two questions I posed. It is a real problem and we cannot hive it off by becoming emotional about the unfortunate people in question.

The main problem concerns where these people are going to buy the drugs. These are illegal drugs being brought into premises that are the responsibility of the State. The State has an obligation to uphold two laws, one on the purchase of illegal drugs and the second on the use of such drugs.

As I have said, nothing I am asking for is in this legislation. There should at least be a provision allowing the legislation to be reviewed or a provision allowing advice to be made available to people so they may come off drugs. The legislation is purely functional. Section 2 is on the application for a licence. The interpretation section speaks for itself. Section 3 is on the granting of a licence, section 4 is on the surrender of a licence, section 5 is on the revocation of a licence, and section 6 is on the transfer of a licence. Section 7 refers to the authorised user, section 8 is on the obligation of the licenceholder to provide information, section 9 is on the liability of the licenceholder, section 10 is on the disapplication of sections 3, 19 and 21 of the Act of 1977, section 11 is on the power of Garda to enter a supervised injecting facility and section 12 concerns regulations. There is nothing in the legislation that would suggest that, as part of this process, we are trying to help people, not just give them some comfort regarding how they inject themselves. There is nothing in the legislation about any form of rehabilitation or even a mention of the word. Second, we still have not answered the question that, as legislators, we will be obliged to answer, namely, the question of how these people will get the illegal drugs. They are being purchased by drug dealers, who will be able to operate within 50 yd. of the injecting facilities. I do not want to be presented as somebody who is not sympathetic to people who are caught up in this horrible situation. Of course I am as anxious as anybody else to help them. This, however, is legislation that we have to stand over.