Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses and congratulate all of them for their participation and all they have done. They have done a great body of work and practised great diligence in coming to their recommendations. I will synopsise what I have taken from it. Decriminalisation for personal use is high on the agenda. There is also a health-led approach, with greater political and policy supports required and increased resourcing right across the spectrum, including for recovery services and addiction.

These problems are all multifaceted and societal in nature. The question is how much can all this do to change what is happening in society.

On cannabis and the divergence of opinion in respect of it, there is something I would like to understand. Cannabis is not the drug it was 20 or 30 years ago. The addiction rates relating to cannabis are far different from what they were. The impacts of cannabis, particularly for younger users, are starting to become known in psychiatric services. Where was that taken into account? Cannabis is probably regarded as a soft drug compared with some of the others.

When it comes to community supports, what is working and what is not working? I am close to Aiséirí in Waterford. I have been there a number of times. It does great work, particularly in terms of the penal system, addiction recovery, trauma and marginalisation in society, but that is not all of it. There is the push-and-pull factor of drugs being forced on communities and people, for whatever reason, being open to drugs. When we talk talks about marginalised societies and trauma, it does not explain the rise in fentanyl use in Ivy League universities in America and that is coming here too. People are predisposed to try things and get into them for various reasons. It is not always about the levels of affluence or otherwise. Another big factor, which we see with drugs entering the country here, is that there are the push and pull factors of people using it but there is criminal enterprise here with international criminal syndicates. The ability of our State to tackle this is limited. The conversation here and education are both very important, but it is hard to know how we build from where we are now in the context of what is in the citizens' assembly report. What do we do first that we give us the best outcomes with the limited resources we have?