James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and wish her good luck in the new role she has been assigned. I have every confidence she will make a great success of it. I am very pleased we are moving now towards the establishment of a citizens’ assembly.

At the outset, I thank my colleagues across the parties on the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice. I also thank my secretariat, the clerk, Alan Guidon, and his team, and all of the stakeholders who come in to us. Almost a year ago, we set out to have hearings on this subject. We selected it because we felt it was an area of public policy about which there was increasing concern among the general public and where perhaps the policy was misguided, or at least in need of an update. Our approach, as it is to any topic we examine, was to invite stakeholders from every side of the House and of the policy spectrum to present to us.

One of the first findings we made was in respect of advocates in favour of modernising the approach, whether to decriminalisation, legalisation, a public health framework or some combination of those. These greatly outnumbered advocates who wished to remain with the current model and system. I would almost say we had to go looking for people to advocate on behalf of the status quo. I thank those who did so very well and with great professional integrity and experience. However, I believe it is fair to say, and as the report pointed out, that view was in the minority.

I will summarise the views and I hope the committee report will provide a useful context to the citizens’ assembly.It could have an input and I would recommend, if at all possible, that it be distributed to the members of the citizens’ assembly when it convenes because we made close to 20 recommendations. These were all expert-based and evidence-led and were achieved with cross-party consensus throughout our hearings. That report should feed into the assembly.

We should accelerate the process of decriminalisation, which is already in being. Last year at Electric Picnic, we saw substances being tested for the first time. We see the medical cannabis programme being advanced and rolled out. We see the drugs Acts differentiating between the quantity of substance and the type of substance a person may have and the actions which are taken as a result. We need to accelerate the process of decriminalisation, which is already under way.

We should consider a legalisation framework. I understand some are less comfortable with that than others. I believe, however, this is about consistency. Anybody can walk out of this House and walk two or five minutes away, depending on whether one is staying inside or going outside of the campus, and can purchase another drug, alcohol, which can do irreparable harm to communities and to individuals. That is perfectly legal.

From 10.30 a.m., one can buy it on any street corner in Ireland. Other substances that may be available on the opposite street corner have no testing, regulation, quality control or checks and balances and, yet, are prohibited, often because of an accident of history. There is a place to examine that model; a kind of a regulatory model that would test, quality control, sample and manage and, in so doing, drive out the criminal gangsterism and profiteering that goes on as part of this and bring some consistency to that debate.

The third spoke in the wheel would be to apply a consistent public health lens to all of these substances, whether it is alcohol, a "soft drug" or a "hard drug". We should have an educational, proactive stance that is based upon public health policy and a health-led approach and invest in education, treatment and counselling for those who need it. That is a very good balance to strike. I am slightly over time, but I am trying to make up for time lost to the speaker before me. If those three pillars could form part of the building blocks of the citizens' assembly, our committee report would have done the State some service. I wish the assembly well in its deliberations.

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