Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Citizens' assemblies have proven themselves as being sometimes more useful at delivering action and seeing viable solutions than in here and beyond. With many others I am utterly disappointed a citizens' assembly on drugs has not been timed properly. The Taoiseach spoke about the end of 2022 but the Department of Health and the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, state it will be 2023. We need to find out exactly when this will happen. This State has a long history of failing communities. We are failing with regard to addiction. We are failing in that we have allowed criminal gangs to harangue communities. We have not put in family supports, community supports or addiction supports. We require this to go to the people so that people can look at novel ideas. We are chasing ourselves on this.

4 o’clock

Do not get me wrong, we need policing. We need policing at this time to be concentrated on those criminal gangs. We need the Criminal Assets Bureau to be concentrated on the these criminal gangs. We need this assembly to happen as soon as possible. This is a failure on top of many failures, and it is not good enough for the communities across Louth, Dundalk and Drogheda and across this State and country. It is an issue that impacts on all. It is not good enough. Very simply, when we called for an Irish unity citizens' assembly to allow for that conversation, which is necessary and which is happening, the Taoiseach stated that he does not believe it is the forum. The Taoiseach needs to come up with the goods for a forum. If that is to be an expanded shared island dialogue, then it needs to be expanded and we need not to worry too much about those we will offend. Unionism is in a cul-de-sac. It knows this is coming and we need to get ready.

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