John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)

I do not mean any disrespect to Deputy O'Connor, who put his finger on the drugs issue, when I ask him to pick out the aspects of the Criminal Justice Bill 2004 which will make a difference on the streets. As far as I can tell, the legislation will do nothing to bring about change in respect of drugs. I have examined the Bill and I think it is useless.

When I listened to the Minister's opening speech yesterday, the first thing that caught my attention was his remark that, "it has taken somewhat longer than I hoped it would to bring this motion before the House". The fact is that he was forced to initiate this debate because he was embarrassed by what happened last week. When some people raised concerns about the number of amendments proposed to the Criminal Justice Bill 2004, he conceded the point. The Minister has given us some nonsense about the need for an open debate on the issue, but if it were up to him, we would not be having this debate. He was forced into it.

The other thing that caught my attention was the Minister's comment in defence of his record that, "the number of headline crimes was heading for well over 500,000 if the rainbow Government had remained in office for five years". That is like me saying that the way things are going, half the people in this Chamber will be murdered if Deputy McDowell remains as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform over the next five years.

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