Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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It is that balance of police having a particular function in society in terms of control or detecting illegal activity and so on and having to change that culture somewhat. Changing that culture also can add to public safety in general. It is not necessarily about waiting outside tents or pulling people over as they go into a safe injection facility. Not doing that in fact extends, rather than shrinks, public safety in a sense but I understand the balance.

When we look at the idea of decriminalising drugs, a lot of conversations will happen around violence. Sometimes substances are less of an issue for people in their everyday lives in a concentrated community setting than high levels of violence. That is often the thing that people will point to most when it comes to what of concern to them or in terms of what makes them feel comfortable or for businesses to feel as though they can operate as normal in a safe environment. If the Government implements decriminalisation, there is also the element of violence. That is another where area I would love to see a drive towards, for example, recognising, as does the World Health Organization, that violence is also a public health crisis. How do we begin to look at violence through that lens? Some of it is obviously drug-related and there are threads that flow between them. Are there discussions at present around that? I have conversations coming up with the Scottish violence reduction unit and the police force there and many allies have been asking how communities can respond to violence without it always being a police response, especially if we are trying to reduce retaliatory violence. Ireland does not yet have those projects at a community level. Are there many discussions as regards An Garda Síochána and how we need to move towards viewing violence as a public health crisis? How do we address that going forward at societal level from a policing perspective?