Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion. I see that the former Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, has just left. I know the contribution he made to the preparation of this citizens' assembly. It is important to say we would not have reached this point without significant voices in all political parties and many at a community level calling for this citizens' assembly to be established. We know the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 is not working. Drug use has increased over this time and the State is allocating huge resources to try to tackle the management and implementation of this legislation. The 100 people who will form this citizens' assembly have a difficult task. Many of them will be coming to it with no background in or awareness of addiction, or the illness that is addiction. Many of them may come from communities that have experienced the impact of drug use for many years, while many will also come from communities where the problem may perhaps be more hidden. We should be clear, however, that the drugs issue impacts every community, although it may be more open in some.

These 100 people will come together and they will have to tackle the issue of the legal framework and service provision. There is a tendency in this debate for us to get lost in the argument around decriminalisation or regulation. Access to services, though, is key in terms of the outcome of the citizens' assembly. I do not want to say too much in advance of it, because, in some ways, we are pre-empting its work. As other Deputies said, my view is that the illegal drugs industry has grown to such a scale and size, in terms of the international networks and resources it can deploy and its willingness to use violence, we have effectively put some of the most vulnerable in our society, those with an addiction, at the end of a supply chain for this illegal drugs industry. Whatever we can do, therefore, to ensure people with problematic drug use can be protected from that network is something we should consider.

Decriminalisation of the person will be a necessary first step in this regard. This is not to say we believe the consumption of drugs is a positive thing. We all, or many people, consume alcohol and we know the negative impacts it has. Many people also smoke tobacco and we know the negative impacts that has too. Saying that it should not be a criminal offence, therefore, for people to use some of the substances that are currently illegal is not an endorsement of their use, but rather an endorsement of a compassionate approach to those people who find themselves having problematic drug use. Let us just think about a situation where we, our sons, our daughters, our mothers or our aunts ended up with problematic drug use. Would we want the Garda calling to their doors or would we want a counsellor, a doctor or a nurse to do so instead? This very simply answers the question of whether we want a justice-led approach or a health-led approach in this regard.

Politicians cannot hide behind this phrase "a health-led approach": we must spell out what it means. I believe decriminalisation of the person is this necessary first step. It removes the criminal sanction and allows us to concentrate on alternative approaches. These include those used in Portugal, although we should not rely too heavily on the Portuguese model. We should come up with an Irish model which is compassionate. This idea of us considering our brothers, our sisters and other family members in this context is how I think we can persuade people this is the right way forward. We have had these difficult conversations in the past, societal conversations, that required changes to be made in referendums. Resistance is often eliminated when we bring proposals back to the human level, the example of our neighbours, our friends, etc.

In some ways, we have an extremely hypocritical approach to drug use in Ireland, given the scale of use of one type of drug, alcohol, and the availability of, for example, methadone, which is a legal product supplied free of charge by the State. Then there are the other classifications of drugs which we make illegal. There is, therefore, no consistency in how we approach this issue. Ultimately, this is about people who have an addiction. Regardless of the substance, addiction is an illness and something that needs to be tackled. This is an opportunity for Ireland to be compassionate and to have a grown-up conversation in this regard. Right across the board, therefore, I encourage people, not just in the Oireachtas but outside it as well, to speak about this issue.

We need to have this adult conversation. We need to make the changes in the legal framework and in the service provision to protect those people who find themselves experiencing problematic drug use.

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