Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Taoiseach when it is expected that the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs will take place. [3275/23]

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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2. To ask the Taoiseach the proposed running order of the citizens' assemblies. [3413/23]

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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3. To ask the Taoiseach when the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs will take place. [4161/23]

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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4. To ask the Taoiseach when the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs will take place. [4234/23]

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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5. To ask the Taoiseach when the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs will take place. [4369/23]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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6. To ask the Taoiseach the proposed running order of citizens’ assemblies. [4415/23]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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7. To ask the Taoiseach the proposed running order of citizens’ assemblies. [4418/23]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 7, inclusive, together.

The programme for Government commits to establishing four citizens' assemblies on the topics of biodiversity loss, the type of directly elected mayor and local government structures best suited for Dublin, matters relating to drugs use and the future of education.

The Citizens' Assembly on local government in Dublin has concluded its work, and submitted its report and recommendations to the Oireachtas in line with the assembly's terms of reference. I met with the Chairman of the assembly, Mr. Jim Gavin, last week and he briefed me in detail on the work done. I want to take this opportunity in the House to thank him and all those who took part in the Citizens' Assembly for their participation and commitment to the task.

The Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss held its final meeting on 21 January and will submit its report and recommendations to the Oireachtas and Government as soon as possible.

Two further citizens' assemblies are committed to in the programme for Government - one on matters relating to drugs use and another on the future of education. It will be a matter for the Oireachtas to agree the timeline and terms of reference for the next assemblies.

I anticipate that the Government will shortly discuss the question of the new citizens' assembly, and will bring forward a proposal on the matter to this House in the coming weeks.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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There are a number of speakers and each will have up to a minute and a half.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Taoiseach for the information that he has provided thus far on this important issue.

I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, on her appointment as the new Minister of State with responsibility for the national drugs strategy. Last month, her predecessor, Deputy Feighan, reiterated the Government's commitment to holding a citizens' assembly on drugs in early 2023. Last week, the Taoiseach also confirmed that he will bring forward a proposal in the coming weeks, but we need more than that now. We need to hear a timeline and a date for the establishment of the citizens' assembly. It is almost three years since the programme for Government committed to holding this citizens' assembly and we are still no closer to a definitive date. As the Taoiseach will be aware, the Joint Committee on Justice recently undertook research on the current legal position on possession. I hope the Taoiseach can confirm today that the recommendations made in that report will inform the terms of reference of a citizens' assembly. Hopefully, that work has begun. Will the Taoiseach lay out the timeline for the citizens' assembly on drugs to take place?

Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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My question is the same. The programme for Government stated that there would be a citizens' assembly in relation to drug use and the broader question of decriminalisation. We have waited and waited, but as of yet there has not been a date, which is disappointing. This issue has gone on for decades and the status quois completely unacceptable. It is unacceptable on the basis that as long as Governments do not do anything positive, people will die. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about people's lives. I believe if we had a different approach to drug use, there would be people still living today. Most people in this country have changed their opinion in relation to maintaining the status quoor even going backwards. I firmly believe that the Irish public now are open to a different approach in relation to drug use. Whatever the recommendations the citizens' assembly gives, it is imperative that the Government implement them. I believe that in the lifetime of this Government, however long it takes, for the sake of people who are living today who will be dead it has to change its stance on the Misuse of Drugs Acts. It does not work.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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Like the other Deputies, I urge the Taoiseach to name a date and a chairperson for the citizens' assembly. I join the Taoiseach in congratulating the chairs of the two previous bodies. We have a citizens' assembly infrastructure. It has dealt with two issues and we have two more to go. I can appreciate why it has taken some time to get here. There is a commitment in the programme for Government. That is positive. Both the Taoiseach and his predecessor have committed to having it in 2023. That is hopeful.

Along with the citizens' assembly debate, we also need to have a civic society debate. We need to ensure that organisations, such has the drugs task forces, are funded so that they can have those conversations with communities that have been impacted by drugs and with communities that have not been impacted by drugs, or believe that they have not been impacted by drugs because we know drug use is across all of society. I ask the Minister of State to engage with the drugs task forces to enable that civic society campaign in parallel to the citizens' assembly. I would ask for society, more broadly, to start to have the discussion. If you have not thought about the issue of drugs, if you have not thought about how it impacts you and your community, I ask that you start to have those discussions. By doing that, we will have an informed debate, not one based on moral judgments.

Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome that there is a commitment in the programme for Government to hold a citizens' assembly on drugs. I am conscious that the other citizens' assemblies are unfinished at this stage. I am thinking of the one on biodiversity. Would the Taoiseach envisage that it would have to be finished up before he would advance the other ones or can they run in parallel? I would hope that they could, and that there would not be any delay, because the Government already had the Dublin mayor and biodiversity ones running in parallel. It is important that the citizens' assembly on drugs would get up and running as soon as possible. The conversations are already taking place right across the country in communities, at dinner tables and in various places. I had the opportunity to meet with so many different groups on it. These included those on youth diversion programmes and students. The Joint Committee on Justice has also been debating the issue. I would be interested to hear if the Taoiseach has a view on its deliberations as well.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I was involved in organising, along with the Save Our Forests Save Our Lands campaign, a protest last week around the debate on Coillte's outrageous deal with Gresham House to buy up large amounts of land and forestry. The demands of that protest were strongly echoed by the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss when it expressed grave concern about the Gresham House deal. It has been said, rightly, that the Forestry Act and the mandate of Coillte need to be radically changed so that Coillte stops acting as a commercial outfit doing forestry in a way that is damaging biodiversity and instead starts to operate for the common and environmental good. The truth is that the Irish forestry model is destroying biodiversity. That is the actuality of the situation. That will be exacerbated by the Gresham House deal or any other such similar deals. I ask the Taoiseach to reconsider the Government's position that it cannot back out of the deal with Gresham House. The Government must back out of this deal because it will contribute to further destruction of biodiversity and move us further down the wrong road when we need to listen to what the Citizens' Assembly is saying about forestry in this country.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I want to ask if the Taoiseach will listen to the citizens' assemblies when they report. We establish them and they make recommendations on the basis of the evidence that they hear. For example, will the Taoiseach listen to the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss in the context of the Gresham House deal? Will the Taoiseach listen to them when they say that State-owned woodland should be recognised and managed as a strategic long-term national asset for the benefit of the common good? They make such a recommendation because they understand that we are in, internationally, a sixth mass extinction event. In Ireland, one in every fifth species is threatened with extinction and one in every third species of bee is threatened with extinction. We are in an absolute dire crisis. Unfortunately, the monocultural Sitka spruce model of forestry practised in Ireland means that instead of being a guardian of biodiversity, our forests have been turned into a graveyard of biodiversity. That is a direct consequence of organising our forestry for profit rather than for combating climate change and biodiversity loss.

Does the Taoiseach accept he must instruct Coillte to tear up the deal with Gresham House? If he says he cannot do that, he should bring emergency legislation to the House to enable Coillte to do it. A majority of Deputies in the Dáil would vote in favour of it. The deal must be torn up and Coillte's mandate must be changed.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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Two months ago the Labour Party brought forward a Dáil motion calling for a firm date to be set for convening a citizens' assembly on drugs. We are looking for a date for the establishment of that assembly. In particular, its terms of reference must ensure it addresses the central issue of how we move away from a criminal justice approach to drug use and towards a health-led approach. Permission was finally granted over Christmas for a supervised injection facility at Merchants Quay in Dublin. We still see a clear need for other such facilities in other cities and urban areas. Will the Taoiseach confirm whether there are plans to have supervised injection facilities available, even on a mobile basis?

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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The case for a citizens' assembly on drugs has been made for a long time and there is an urgency around it. I support it. I wish it could be brought forward more quickly than the Taoiseach has indicated but I appeal to him to stick to the commitment and to the date as set out.

Would the Taoiseach believe me if I told him that for the past year and a half there has been no functioning drug and alcohol task force in Dublin's north inner city? Can he imagine that? It was ground zero of the heroin epidemic in the 1980s. It is still an area where neighbourhoods are ravaged by intergenerational drug misuse, abuse and addiction, and all the associated social phenomenons. I have raised this issue for a year and a half. I raised it with Deputy Feighan when he was Minister of State, with the Taoiseach and with the Minister for Health. There has been a deliberate running down and disbandment of the drug and alcohol task force in the north inner city of Dublin. A report was drawn up by the outgoing Minister of State. It was submitted somewhere. I appeal for the report to be published, for the duly selected chair to be appointed and for the body to be allowed to go on with its work. I will not elaborate on the behaviour of the Department and others in this fiasco. I simply appeal that it be brought to an end.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for their contributions. I anticipate the Government will consider the question of the next citizens' assemblies in the near future. Once a decision has been taken, we will promptly bring forward a proposal to the House for debate and resolution. Subject to the timely passage of the resolution, my expectation is that the next citizens' assemblies could commence as early as April or May and should be in a position to report back to the House before the end of the year. The Government is committed to fulfilling the programme for Government commitment to establish new citizens' assemblies on matters relating to drug use and the future of education. We are keen to have them up and running before the summer recess. I can confirm that the work of the Joint Committee on Justice will inform the terms of reference, as will earlier work carried out by former Justice Garrett Sheehan's group and the justice committee previously under Deputy Stanton's chairmanship. The citizens' assembly on drugs will look at issues in the round and decriminalisation can be part of that.

The two citizens' assemblies in 2022 were run in parallel. It is possible. However, the clear advice from the chairpersons of both assemblies and the independent evaluators was that future assemblies should be run sequentially rather than concurrently. That is the best way to give each assembly the necessary space and time to undertake its deliberations without undue constraints. In response to the Deputies' questions, we will listen to what the citizens' assemblies have to say. It is fair to say we did so on marriage equality, on the eighth amendment and on the climate law, but listening to what they say does not necessarily mean adopting every recommendation lock, stock and barrel.

There is some misunderstanding and misinformation with respect to the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund. No State-owned land is involved. No public land is being privatised. The land is already privately owned and most of it is under forest already. We need forests for many reasons. We need them as a climate sink, for biodiversity and for leisure but also for timber and that is where spruce and conifers are the most useful. We want to move away from using concrete and steel in favour of timber-----

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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We have plenty of spruce though. We have loads of it.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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-----and that is why there is room for different types of forestry.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We have exported loads of them.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I will take up the issue of the north inner city drugs and alcohol task force with the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. She is new to her role, but I will ensure that she is aware of it and that progress is made on it.