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

I thank the Minister of State and the other witnesses for attending. I want to cut to the chase. The elephant in the room is whether the current drugs policy in Ireland is working. I would say it is not and will continue not to work in relation to the prevalence of drugs in our society. Obviously, drug prevalence has huge effects on the community. We have seen that the criminal justice system does not deal with the issue. A health-led approach has better outcomes.

If we want to look at a model that works, we must look at Portugal. There was a bad situation in Portugal before decriminalisation was introduced. Without going into the full workings of it, decriminalisation takes people away from the criminal justice system and takes an holistic approach to those in society who use drugs.

To me, that is a better approach. Are we heading towards it? There are elements in the Government that are highly resistant to it, but there are other elements that are open to the idea. This has been talked about for decades, however, and nothing has really been done. People have sat on their hands and paid lip service to the ongoing situation. A different approach must be taken and it has to be radical. It must be very different from what has happened because, otherwise, we will be speaking about the same things in ten years' time. That approach is decriminalisation and possibly looking at the legalisation of certain other drugs. Is there a policy in the Department to change the current policy which essentially pays lip service to a health-led approach?

Criminalising people for drug use simply does not work. I refer to what is happening in the European Union at the moment, particularly in respect of cannabis use. Malta, Luxembourg and Germany will be legalising cannabis in the lifetime of this Government. One can see how this is going and that Ireland should lead on it because the current policy does not work. It alienates, marginalises and stigmatises people. We need a different approach. Will the Department take a different approach compared with what it has been doing, practically, for the past 25 years?