Mr. Justin Kelly:

It is section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Acts 1977 to 1984, which covers pure possession. As the Cathaoirleach correctly said, it applies to small amounts. It is the same for all drugs. I am sure people will wonder how we work out where the threshold is. There is simple possession and then supply. Generally, the smaller amounts, particularly of cannabis, are quite straightforward. There could still be a relatively small amount, however, such as an ounce or two of cannabis, but if people were also found in possession of cash, a list of names or whatever the circumstances may be, they could be prosecuted for supply, even though they had a small amount.

Going back to the 11,000 section 3 possession charges in 2022, only 261 people ended up going to jail, and when we looked at the 261, every one of those had previous convictions.

Of those, the median number of previous convictions was 74. The reality of that, which I am sure is not lost on anyone, is that no one is being sentenced to prison for the first time they are caught with drugs. That just does not happen in our system, although some people believe it does. The reality is that does not happen. That is in respect of cannabis. With all other drugs it moves from the fines section to the imprisonment section for a first offence. Cocaine is treated differently from cannabis. Again, the Judiciary’s approach comprises many different alternatives, ranging from probation to drugs court. There are lots of different options when it actually gets to court. No one, including the Garda Síochána, the Judiciary and the defence lawyers, wants to see people going to jail for having small amounts of drugs. No one has any interest in that. As I said in my opening statement, our focus is not on prosecuting drug addicts for small amounts of drugs. We have no metrics for that. There is no measurement of it. It is not a target we aim for. That is not our focus whatsoever.