Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)

This Private Members' motion is very personal for many people across the country. In each and every community, urban and rural, a significant number of people are now using drugs in their daily lives, in their nightlife activities or as their coping mechanism. This motion at the end of the day is about people. It is often a conversation that is taboo. People do not speak about it. I am very proud to be in the Labour Party which has led on this in calling out our country's failed drug policies.

I wish to speak about the great mother who suffered so badly because of the harm of drug taking, overdosing and the lack of support. Ms Christine Kavanagh is a mother from Cork who has lost three sons to drug overdoses. A number of months ago I watched her interview on RTÉ and her deep emotion struck many people across the country. Christine lost her three sons, Dillon, Damien and Leon, to drug overdoses. Christine outlined that more services need to be offered to help people with addiction and mental health. I will just read some of what Christine said, "Mental health always comes with addiction... I just feel there’s nothing being done for people with addiction and mental health [issues]". On a supervised injecting centre for Cork, Christine said, "My two children might have been saved if they were inside in a centre." This story gripped many people's attention - a mother who had been through what no mother should have had to go through, calling for increased supports, a reform of our drug policy and a drug-injecting facility for Cork. That is exactly what I am calling for here. Along with this, a key recommendation of the Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use was a greater focus on prevention and recovery, and greater supports for family and children impacted by drug use.

This motion is also quite personal to me. Two family members of mine have been in rehab facilities in Cork, most recently my own brother this year. I see the amazing work being done in these facilities. However, if a family cannot cope with the exorbitant figure to enter this facility, the individual must wait up to eight months in some instances to be referred by the HSE. I know of a treatment centre in Cork that my brother went to. Some weeks, it only has ten recovering patients because people cannot afford to get in and for those who are waiting to get in, when the time comes around for them to take a place in the recovery programme, they do not want to help anymore. When a person makes a decision to seek help, they need it there and then. They have had a realisation that they want a better life. We should not be placing them on a waiting list because of the affordability of services.

Recently at the Simon Community in Cork, I spoke to the nurse there who told me she started working for Simon 20 years ago when the issue was 100% housing need. She now believes it split 50:50 between drug addiction and housing needs. We make it unequivocally clear that those who sell and distribute drugs should be treated as the criminals they are. They are making easy money off vulnerable people. Based on what some in this House say on this motion, the phrase "running with the hare and hunting with the hounds" is quite appropriate. Some people have offered sympathy and empathy to some families, but along with that they are not man enough to stand up and have a real debate on how we must be progressive on our drug policy and absolutely take a health-led approach to drug users.

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