Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. As my colleague has already said, Fianna Fáil will support the Bill. I thank the Minister and the officials in his Department for the information provided for this debate. This most reassuring aspect of his speech is the fact that the Department was aware of the situation and had prepared for this potential finding of the court of appeal. However, the whole issue of drugs and addiction in our society has not really hit the radar. We need a proper national conversation about where we should be going in the future. We should have a proper debate in this House. We all know that methadone is very often the only solution provided to heroin addicts. It is time for us to re-evaluate our drugs strategy and assess it to see what is working and what is not working.Generally speaking, billions have been spent to prevent drug addiction and the drugs trade, but it is not working. We have to look at the whole drug situation and have a national conversation to see where we go in future.