Mr. Cathal O'Regan:

It is a very complicated set of questions. The report has quite a lot of detail on what the citizens' assembly meant by a comprehensive health-led approach, and we sent a supplementary paper last evening which I hope will give the committee members a much better understanding of the confusing different ways decriminalisation can be explained and is meant because very different meanings can be attributed to the same term. It is a highly problematic word.

What the assembly did, instead of trying to define decriminalisation, was to define the policy objectives it wants. The objectives are a combination of a version of decriminalisation that supports health diversion and dissuasion. The two points of reference its model can be equated to are Austria and Portugal. Both of those have comprehensive health-led approaches and in both cases there is a role for authorities other than the health services as the first point of contact. That includes the police, both in Portugal and in Austria, because in the version of decriminalisation in use in those countries, and this is the version recommended by the citizens' assembly, the possession of drugs continues to be an offence and to be illegal and prohibited under law. At the first point of engagement, whether that be with the police or other authorities that find a person in possession of drugs, they have a legal mandate to refer that person to a health-led intervention. That, in theory, should be the end of the police or authorities involvement other than in the case where somebody then does not co-operate with the dissuasion sanctions imposed, for example, by the dissuasion committees in Portugal or the health authorities in Austria. A person will then potentially run the risk of committing an offence. In Portugal there is an offence called "disobedience of".