Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Smyth's question about the soon to be old building and community use in Bailieborough is probably a matter for the OPW, but I will certainly relay that to the OPW. I think there has been a good tradition of community involvement and discussion about the use of former buildings. I am not sure of the OPW's plans, but I will certainly relay her view, which sounds sensible.

I am grateful the Deputy raised the issue of drugs and drug use, and I express my sincere sympathies to those families.

I am delighted, genuinely, that we have taken a decision to establish a citizens' assembly on drugs. I see Deputy Ó Ríordáin's badge, which in fairness I consistently see. I think this will be welcomed by all sides, all political parties and none in the Oireachtas. It is a very good structure to tease through these issues and I am looking forward to it progressing. I met the Garda drugs unit recently on this. I share the Deputy's analysis. I am extremely concerned about the prevalence of drug use in our country. I am a former Minister for Health. I believe very much in a health-led approach to addiction. I am pleased at some changes that were made there in recent years. However, we also have to get extraordinarily tough on the gangs, the drug dealers, pushers and people coming in and destroying communities and families. That is for the Garda and it is doing a lot of good work on it. I want to see more on that and more resources directed to it. I have had good conversations about it.

There is another piece we are not talking enough about, which is the growing acceptability of the so-called social use of drugs. There are people funding this gangland criminality through cocaine use. It is happening in all parts of Ireland and in all communities, rural and urban. We need to start calling it out and getting much tougher on it. We also need to start reminding people of the direct link between their actions on a Saturday night and gangland crime on a Monday. There is a direct correlation. Who do they think is funding the gangland criminals? I have a very supportive approach towards drug addicts. I am not talking about the health-led approach we need to take to addiction. I am talking about people going out, the perceived social use of drugs and, sometimes, their social acceptability. I want to see a renewed focus on that. Whatever comes of the citizens' assembly on drugs, and I think a lot of good can come from it, we must always remember the harmful impact of drugs on individuals and communities. It sounds to me like the Deputy has seen it in a very painful and vivid way in his constituency.

Deputy Daly raised the matter of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill 2022. It passed Second Stage in the Dáil on Thursday. The next step is that I am due to bring a report to Cabinet on the use of FRT with a view to publishing that as well. I hope to do that in the coming weeks. I am eager to move on this legislation. We need to get it passed, whatever else the Oireachtas and Government decide to do. We need to get the gardaí having bodycams later this year. I know the Deputy and I share that view. As the Deputy has said, the Garda Commissioner has said he intends to carry out a pilot use of the bodycams in the first instance later this year. He needs the legislation to pass to enable the pilot to take place.

I am going to park debating facial recognition technology until another day. I could go on quite a lot about it. I am sure these are some issues we can tease through. There are some genuine and sincere views that people hold on this. People have different views from me and I fully accept their views are sincere and deeply held. There is some misinformation, although not from the Deputy. I heard in the Dáil last week that we should wait for Europe and should not move ahead of Europe on facial recognition technology. I went off and checked what Europe was doing. We are a part of Europe, by the way. We are not just takers but help to make it. Europe is only looking at legislating for live FRT in the artificial intelligence, AI, Act. There is no proposal due to come from the EU on retrospective matters. On retrospective FRT, the European Data Protection Board last May published its guidelines as to how that should be used. There are legitimate debates to be had about both but there is a significant difference between retrospective and live use. I will tease these through and no doubt we will get to debate them in the Dáil.

On Killarney, the Deputy knows Garda deployment is rightly a matter for the Commissioner and not a political decision. I would hope and expect that, as Government funds the growth of Garda numbers, there is a keen focus on locations where there is an under-representation of gardaí and where there has been significant population growth, which Garda numbers need to grow to match. It sounds to me like Killarney is very much a town like that.