Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will switch the debate slightly. Many Members have spoken about hospital waiting lists, overcrowding and the lack of hospital consultants. I want to talk about an issue which is important to me but which, unfortunately, is not dealt with as a health issue but rather as a criminal justice issue. I refer to drug addiction. People are dying in doorways and in public toilets as a result of taking overdoses. Only last week in Cork, a 19 year old tragically lost his life because of an overdose. As Deputy Barry is aware, in Cork we have an ever-increasing number of people losing their lives through addiction. The way in which we tried to address this matter in the past has clearly not worked. We have addressed it as a criminal justice issue by criminalising addicts. We even had a situation where a needle exchange programme was shut down because it had given needles to somebody not on its list.

Unfortunately, this is an issue we need to re-examine. Drug addiction should be viewed as a public health issue. When people are contracting diseases and dying as a result of injecting or over-medicating, we need to examine that from a public health and not a criminal justice point of view. I implore that this be done.

We had a Minister of State with responsibility for drugs in the Minister's Department who progressed some of the work on medically supervised injecting centres. The heads of that Bill were to be drafted but, unfortunately, because of the current impasse in forming a Government, we do not know where that legislation will end up. I hope that whoever takes over the position of Minister or Minister of State with responsibility for drugs will progress that quickly, because there is no doubt that medically supervised injecting centres will save lives. In the centres that have been opened, there have been no deaths from overdose as a result of heroin use. They have reduced crime levels in those areas and also reduced the number of infections due to intravenous drug use.

I will conclude, as I wish to allow Deputy Tóibín to contribute, but this is an issue that must be dealt with from a public health point of view. We need to stop criminalising addicts.

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