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

I am greatly encouraged by this debate. I thank Deputies Martin Kenny, Mitchell and Ward for bringing forward this legislation. All those Deputies have a great track record in this area. I am greatly taken by the remarks of Deputy Ó Murchú, who said the war on drugs is over. It needs to be over because the war on drugs is a war on people but it is also a war on a particular type of person. Deputy Paul Donnelly is absolutely right. We need to broaden this debate and talk about poverty, disadvantage and education. Deputy Gannon is also correct that we need to bring forward the conversation about decriminalisation of the drug user.

My problem with this debate is that I have come to the sad conclusion, over a period of years dealing with this issue, that the State and the Irish public, including the Irish media and often Irish politicians, just do not value the lives that are lost enough. We just do not place the same value on the poor lives that are lost in the crossfire of drug crime or through addiction because they are perceived to be powerless. I often wonder if cattle died at the same rate as people do from overdoses in Ireland whether there would be a greater national outcry. If cattle died at the same rate people die of overdoses, there would be emergency legislation, national conversations, protests outside the door and media demands for action. However, because the people who die from overdoses or in the crossfire of drug crime are considered to be valueless or less worthy, it is allowed to continue.

I will give an example from this week. Apart from the fact that the Minister of State with responsibility for drugs is probably the most absent and most disinterested of drugs Minister I have ever come across, one of the Government's own backbenchers this very week used a dehumanising term to describe people who are sucked into addiction. He called them "druggies". We have come a long way in Ireland. People who are vulnerable in Irish society used to be called dehumanising terms and we have moved away from that in so many areas. You used to be able to use in common conversation derogatory terms about the Travelling community, migrants, people with disabilities or people from the LGBT community. You cannot do that anymore because we have travelled so far but you can still use a derogatory term about someone who is sucked into addiction any day or night in the national Parliament or on the airwaves and get away with it. There will not be a cry from the Government parties or anybody else demanding an apology for using this phrase. The Deputy in question can go on national radio or his local radio station and double down on it because he knows society thinks the people he is describing are worthless. That, fundamentally, is what is at the heart of this. It is the inequality of it.

The people who die, the young people who have guns put in their hands and get involved in drug crime do it because it gives them some perverse sense of empowerment and because they perceive they are locked out of mainstream society. This is the only way they can get respect. A child is given a gun and told to do a run. That is the only way they feel they can get respect. There are also, as Deputy Gannon quite rightly said, people who are so immersed in pain and trauma that they turn to addiction because it eases the pain. The people who are affected by addiction are disproportionately from disadvantaged communities, such as the Travelling community, migrant communities, people with disabilities, people from the LGBTQ community. That is because they are disconnected and addiction or substance misuse connects them to something. When we criminalise that use of drugs, we are actually criminalising that disconnection and that marginalisation. Yet a Government backbencher can walk in here, use that derogatory term and get away with it. He will get away with it. That Deputy is the chair of the education committee.

We have an historic opportunity across these Houses to do something worthwhile here. Why can we not open the overdose prevention facility that was legislated for in 2017 and passed by Cabinet in 2015? It is waiting to be opened in Merchant's Quay. If it is not possible because of planning concerns, could we not have a mobile clinic? We could use our imagination and begin to save lives now. Are we not doing that because these lives are just not worthy? As the caller to the emergency services said when he found a dead body close to Merchant's Quay, "It is just another junkie". Is that the official State view? It is a view that exists in Irish society. We cannot challenge that view unless we collectively ask ourselves to do better. We could have had that injecting facility already opened or turned it into a mobile facility. We could have opened it in Cork or Limerick instead if there were planning difficulties. We have an opportunity in the citizens' assembly on drugs being held next year to change drug policy here for good, put the person who is most affected by this at the centre of the conversation, and, yes, decriminalise that person and lift that voice. We have to honestly ask ourselves whether the problem is that the lives that are caught in the crossfire, the people who are handed guns as children and the lives that are lost through overdose - we have the third highest overdose rate in Europe, by the way - are just not valued by us.

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