Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will give the example of the superintendent in Dundalk arriving at a community meeting we had in Muirhevnamore. He was congratulated on some of the work the Garda had carried out and it was down to the drug squad being put back into action, there not having been one for a couple of years and at that stage there were three or four members. The superintendent said it was great and that hopefully they would get the numbers up to five but that he could do with 50 or 100. He also asked if there was anywhere in the world where this has worked. That is why I am saying we need to have that citizens' assembly on drug use as soon as possible, while also accepting that Ireland is small, whether it is 26 counties or 32 counties. If something novel is to happen it would probably have to happen on a Europe-wide basis. I do not expect Dr. Bedford to give a view on that and I accept that I am on a tangent.

I refer to Dr. Bedford's specific remit and the Chair has asked him about resourcing. Is there a need for updated legislation to deal with the particular circumstances we are in? There is another thing everyone talks about and there are people who are using cocaine at the minute but who are not necessarily getting penalised to the degree that they become pariahs. I am not saying that necessarily works but this has been put to me by people who work in this situation and they say that at the end of the day, people who are heroin addicts end up going around and around with court cases and all the rest of it. We do not have the appropriate addiction services either. An awful lot of people who would see themselves as safe recreational users of cocaine may have good jobs and may otherwise be ticking the correct boxes but some of them can breeze through life and it does not have the same impact.