Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

As a member of the all-party committee, I join colleagues in urging the Government to expedite the proposal to bring forward the required legislation and accommodate the referendum in the current year. The committee produced a fine body of work over a long and protracted period of some 60 meetings and in the interest of children and children's rights, it merits being brought forward and, hopefully, being enshrined in the Constitution this year. This is something which all parties in the House are committed to achieving.

On the issue of legal substances currently available in this jurisdiction, I referred in earlier questions to the Taoiseach to impending legislation north of the Border and in Britain to ban a number of substances and their derivatives. It is important that whatever lessons can be learned from that approach are applied in this jurisdiction. The tendency heretofore has been to ban a specific substance, without address of the various derivatives or of minor chemical adjustment to a substance, which is a means of bypassing or getting around the ban of the substance on the list.

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