Mr. Paul Reid:

On what we can do, our strong view, which I mentioned earlier, is that we have wasted the seven years since 2017, when it was agreed in the strategy to make a small move forward by way of a health-led approach and not routing people through the criminal justice system. That was in the programme for Government in 2019. It is now 2024 and that has gone nowhere. On the small things can we do, we can act at pace on that. We set out that we need to legislate. We are not recommending that approach. We considered the approach that has been on the shelf since 2017 and we rejected it. We said that we need to go further in terms of a comprehensive health-led approach. We need diversion and dissuasion encompassed in that.

Second, as some of the Deputies stated, this has been a whole-of-government approach. It needs a whole-of-government structure around it. We urge that a dedicated Cabinet committee on drugs that will report annually and assess the impacts and consider all the data. That committee should be chaired by the Taoiseach. I have worked on two Cabinet committees during my career in the public service, and they work. It does get the key principals around the table and holds people to account. They are practical things that can be done, with the legislation and with the Cabinet committee.

After that, we agree, and I think Deputy Ward said this earlier, that addressing the drugs issue is not addressing the whole-of-society issue or those of social deprivation but it has to be addressed. The way we feel it should be addressed is by the wider 36 recommendations that are in the report. We saw great examples all across the country of community and voluntary services that are working. Some are a combination of the statutory services, such as the HSE working with community and voluntary sectors. They are excellent and they work. For example, a dedicated drugs court in Dublin and Cork takes a fundamentally different approach and it is working. Routing people through an education system. The Dublin drugs court has been a pilot project for 20 years. Judge Ann Ryan was on our advisory committee. The court has been pilot project for 20 years. It works; roll the thing out. Those are practical things that we believe can work.

On services, there are a couple of practical issues. If you are relying on the community and voluntary sector, which does a fantastic job, it is sporadic. It is different in different parts of the country with the funding and the accessibility so we said to take a wider look at that. For example, while it has been addressed by some of the recent pay agreements, some section 39 organisations really struggle to get people and keep them because there are better pay rates elsewhere. They also struggle because they only know their annual funding. They do not get multi-annual funding, so they cannot plan for resourcing or for service. They know what they will get next year, probably a couple of months into the year. There are some very real practical things which we believe can be implemented in our recommendations.