Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for their statements. The last 18 months have been a significant challenge for everybody, especially for addiction and community services. Those who were in the throes of addiction prior to the pandemic would have found the last 18 months extremely difficult. I am sure that people found themselves addicted to something that they were not addicted to before the pandemic too. The witnesses may have seen that manifest in the services in the community. That could be a range of things including alcohol, drugs and gambling, in particular, because more people were staying at home. The rules of engagement and the game have changed in the last 18 months and have probably changed everything that we experience for a considerable time.

My questions are primarily about the Ballymun task force. Nobody has mentioned this today. I am an advocate for having a different debate about addiction and drugs. I am not saying that people are advocating for it here, but you cannot police your way out of the situation. We need to have a different debate about decriminalisation of the person rather than of the drugs. We need a debate about the regulation of drugs. We have had an ongoing debate about decriminalisation. It suits the political establishment to let people and communities rot, in some ways, because it does not care, since it is not on the establishment's doorstep. That debate needs to change. It needs to start with looking at different models, at how we treat people and the way people take drugs. People take drugs for all sorts of reasons. This merry-go-round of vast resources going into criminalising people and all that simply does not work in my eyes. It is a waste of resources. I have a question about the task forces. How would they view the decriminalisation model? There is evidence from Portugal that decriminalisation saves lives and takes people out of the criminal justice system, with better outcomes for everybody.

I have a question which goes beyond decriminalisation, which I think we need to go beyond. It is about regulation of some drugs. Criminalising people for cannabis use is a waste of time. There needs to be a regulated system where people are not criminalised or sanctioned for cannabis use. I would like to hear witnesses' views.