Mr. Paul Reid:

That is a great question. There are two issues. First, we gave assembly members five options. These ranged on a continuum from the status quo and the health-led approach that has been on the Department's shelves since 2017 to what we had, namely, a comprehensive health-led approach, which was recommended, to more liberalisation and legalisation. They had five options. We worked through each of them. Second, there was a very interesting moment for all of us in the assembly during a presentation by a senior individual from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction who gave examples of what is happening with regard to legislation and decriminalisation in other countries. That presenter said we should try to articulate what we wanted to achieve. We may not have had the knowledge or legal expertise to describe how to legalise drugs, for example. Even lawyers who were before the assembly differed about what legalisation or decriminalisation meant. However, the presenter from the European monitoring centre gave very strong advice in the context of setting out what we wanted to achieve. We then refocused. We said we did not want people to get a criminal conviction for personal use. We wanted people to get supports for diversion and dissuasion and we wanted drugs decriminalised. We articulated it as that.

What we left open, as the Deputy quite rightly said, were some complex issues, which the Oireachtas and the Government can get the right legal advice on. These include what the limitations for personal use are and how many times people would be caught before no longer being routed through a health-led system. There is also the issue of whether our current legislation needs to be changed if we want to decriminalise some drugs. In addition, who would apply the sanctions? Currently, it is the courts and the justice system. Who would apply sanctions in future to help people through a health-led approach? If they are not going through that approach, who applies the sanctions? Those are the questions on which we believe we need to get the right complex legal advice from the Attorney General and others. We stuck to what we wanted to achieve as an outcome.