Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

This is another of these circumstances where we are going to have agreement there are absolute dangers with vapes. You do not ever have to go very far to find them. At times I probably do not even have to leave my own house, and that is the thing. We have seen the prevalence of vape use among young people, as well as other nicotine-related products such as nicotine pouches. We have also seen something that is far more nefarious, which is HHC vapes. It is like synthetic THC. We have seen the huge damage that happens. We are talking sometimes about very young children who have engaged in this sort of behaviour and that is a gateway to a really bad place. These synthetic-type drugs can also have real detrimental impacts.

We need to move beyond having statements. Statements are fine but we need to see legislative action on this. I do not know how many times we have been in here talking about vapes and how it is pretty obvious tobacco companies have looked for alternatives to what they used to be able to sell, like cigarettes and other products, which have obviously caused abject harm to a huge number of people and families throughout this State and the world. We have seen the huge money these companies have put into fighting legislation, including some of the legislation that has been introduced in this jurisdiction. I have no issue with stating we have seen some decent action taken on cigarettes, but we are where we are in relation to dealing with what we are dealing with at the minute and we know there are particular products that are aimed at younger and younger children. That needs to be dealt with. We need legislation on that.

Going back to the issue with HHC in vapes, no more than dealing with nitrous oxide and all the rest of it, we have really harmful gateway drugs. We have a huge issue with addiction. Even in the last few days we had an event in the audiovisual room where the North Eastern Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Force alongside the Coalition for Better Alcohol Policy said they needed money first of all, as well as a national alcohol strategy and for us to tie it all together. I will be honest that with addiction, drugs and alcohol and some of the accoutrements we are talking about there, we are not having a holistic conversation about how we deal with this. There is an overlap with crime. I am not just talking about organised crime but also about disorganised crime, which people sometimes term antisocial behaviour. We need to have a real conversation. We need rules, regulations and the supports for people to get beyond their addiction as well and to deal with the reality of what we have, rather than just dealing with very simplistic statements.

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