Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I will not labour the point except to state that I welcome the fact that drug barons and drug dealers are convicted for ten years by judges, albeit infrequently, but I have a problem with taking away the discretion of the Judiciary. The more drug barons and drug dealers who are locked up, the better. However, I have a problem as to whether this will be effective and whether it will interfere with judicial discretion. On the point I made earlier in regard to sentence guidelines, I would be much more comfortable with that approach but I want to ensure that judges understand fully the effects of the drugs crisis. The Minister's commitment to this aspect is welcome if only it was backed up by the other tools required to tackle the drugs crisis in Ireland as a whole and that the local drugs squads and national drugs teams had the required resources to make a huge dent in this scandal.

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