Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and his appointment to this new role with responsibility for the national drugs strategy. That appointment is positive and the Minister of State brings immense commitment to the matter, given his personal experience as a teacher and principal in an area that had a significant drug problem and as a Labour Party colleague. I am glad that he has this role. I welcome the initiatives that have been taken and on which he has addressed the House, particularly those relating to SPHE, youth diversion projects, the extra funding for same and the interagency approach that has been adopted in the national drugs strategy and will be continued in the new strategy for the period after 2016. The Minister of State mentioned that, if we run out of time in this debate, he would be glad to return at a future date. It is an issue on which many of us have strong views and the Minister of State brings a passion to it.

We are conscious of the harm caused by drugs. The Minister of State mentioned a figure of 633 drug related deaths in 2012. From my background as a criminal justice practitioner who has represented many people before the criminal courts down through the years and often defended people with serious opiate addiction problems, I am well aware of the harm that can be caused by the misuse of drugs, but we need to bring to the debate on a national drugs strategy a measured and rational approach that is based on a harm reduction model.I am glad to hear the Minister of State say he is looking at evidence-based approaches that have been taken in other jurisdictions, because that is something we need to consider in devising a new national drugs strategy.

There are three things I would like to see us adopt in the new national drugs strategy. We need to treat addiction as a medical problem, a health problem predominantly, and not a criminal justice problem.