Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I thank both witnesses for their thought-provoking and frank contributions. If I could start with Deputy Chief Constable Wilson, when I read her opening statement and listened to her, the experience was that the cart was put before the horse. I heard a report from our Minister for Health recently that in Vancouver during Covid, there was a higher number of deaths related to overdoses than there were to Covid. I can see how there was a rush to do something in response to it so I suppose all credit needs to be given that something was tried.

In Ms Wilson's list of what needs to be done first, she says we need to give consideration to matters of public consumption, licensed establishments, semi-public spaces and driving-related concerns. That seems to be analogous to what Deputy Ward said about public order and alcohol, and that if we used analogous laws, perhaps that would mitigate some of the problematic experiences Vancouver had. Would that be correct?