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

Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe. They have been straightforward in talking about the decriminalisation of the drug user. However, none of this makes any difference without a proper framework and resources in place. We all know that the resources do not exist, regardless of whether that is politicians anecdotally saying it in relation to issues we are dealing with. We are trying to keep an engine running by using baling twine, with services operating on an ad hoc basis. They are not always available as they should be.

There is also the wider societal issue. Ireland was never great at dealing with alcohol addiction, so it is no great shock that we are not great at dealing with cocaine addiction. It is just added in. For some people, it just facilitates their going on a three-day bender. People believe it will not have a major impact on them. For some, there are health implications and for others there is the knock on the door, which we all deal with. Anybody who has been in an emergency department recently will have seen that they are dealing with drug addicts. They are dealing with mental health cases. In some instances, the grenade was released by drug use. Even regarding some of the mad stuff we have all seen online and that politicians have to deal with, I know that the first people I had conversations with around some of the conspiracy thing would have been individuals of my age who would have taken a considerable number of ecstasy tablets in the 90s.

We all accept that we are in a very bad place on this and that it is having a major impact. That is before talking about working-class areas. Obviously, there are many places in working-class areas where drug dealing has become absolutely normalised. In some cases for an awful lot of kids who do not necessarily have great horizons in front of them, all they can see is a way of making money and it has been allowed to happen for too long. That is a wider issue. With all that we have to do, we cannot allow this to happen. We obviously have to deal with multigenerational trauma, poverty and all those other issues.

Of course, everybody feels sorry for the addict. We are also talking about people who have come from really chaotic backgrounds and end up being very vulnerable people who are then used by drug dealers and whoever else. We end up with sales pitches and they create huge hassle for their neighbours and they end up going to all the services. Whether we are talking about the Garda, local authorities or Tusla, the tools and services do not exist. If we are going to deal with all this, it is a much wider question than just criminalisation versus decriminalisation and even following up with addiction services. It is even people who fall into homelessness. Some single people are afraid to go near homeless services because those services are full of drug addicts, some of whom are chaotic and very dangerous. That is the reality.

I accept that people are not always ready to go down the road with addiction services. The witnesses have said we need some means of harm reduction that is not necessarily detox. We also need to make sure we have the facilities to allow for detox and whatever addiction services are possible. Then there is the follow-through. I am dealing with a family at the moment. They have gone through the detox but are looking for something else rather than just going back to the same streets where the person took drugs and whatever else. While not in this case, in many cases all people can do is sit around and ponder the debts they owe to somebody who will definitely come calling. I do not expect anybody to have an answer to that entirely. The witnesses have already outlined what they want to see regarding decriminalisation and whatever else. None of this works without the resources. I know that is more a commentary than a question. If the witnesses can answer this, I would be delighted.