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

We need the citizens' assembly on drugs to happen as soon as possible. We are looking at absolute failure. When we talk about drug use, drug addiction, the services that relate to those problems, drug criminality and drug-debt intimidation, we speak about its impact across society, which is particularly bad in working-class areas in urban settings. We need to do something different. We all accept and have said that the war on drugs has failed. We need to try something different. We need this assembly to be up and running and then we need to ensure we have the services and the interventions. We need to try something different because what we are doing is not working and we are failing multiple people. Many people are dying and I do not see anything hopeful, other than if we listen to what a citizens' assembly says and act upon it.

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