Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is sometimes very hard to know how to articulate something that I have been campaigning on for almost seven years. Along with others, I have been convinced for a long time of the necessity for Ireland to change its drug policy. I have been working with others in other political parties, movements, lobby groups and community groups to try to get Ireland to change its view of the drug user. In all that, there is now space for us to talk as a country about the treatment we have handed down to those who have used drugs, who use drugs and who are in addiction services.

There is a significant misunderstanding of the nature of drug use. We have attempted over the course of the history of the State to shame those who take drugs as much as we possibly can, and to criminalise them in an attempt to get them to stop, but that has been the most catastrophic policy failure on any level. It is an expensive disaster that causes misery, pain and death. The people who are most affected by it are the most vulnerable and powerless in Irish society. When we criminalise people for their addiction or drug use, we are actually criminalising marginalisation and disconnection because, disproportionately, the people who come into the criminal justice system as a result of being caught with something in their possession for their own personal use are from areas of disadvantage, are members of the Travelling community, are migrants or are people with disabilities. They are often people who are self-medicating trauma and pain and are trying to seek a connection. Irish society, the Irish Legislature and this State have decided to criminalise that disconnection and marginalisation in an attempt to correct that individual. It does not work. Some 70% of drug cases in front of the courts concern possession for personal use. It is a complete and utter waste of time, money and energy and it does not work.

We are waiting for the Minister of State. I and others in different parties in this Oireachtas have given him time, space and latitude to step up and be the advocate for a citizens' assembly on drugs. It would be easy for us in the Opposition to dismiss the idea of a citizens' assembly on drugs as being a mere talking shop, but my party and I decided that we had to come from a good and fair place to allow such an assembly to be established and advocate within it for what we are trying to advocate for, which is a radical overhaul of drug policy in Ireland. We are still waiting for the Minister of State and the Government to commit to establishing a citizens' assembly on drugs where we can start a proper national conversation on a failed policy and to replace it with something new.

See this speech in context