Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I understand that we are taking Report Stage tomorrow. I withdraw my amendment on the basis that I shall resubmit it tomorrow on Report Stage. Therefore, I give the Minister of State 24 hours to consider my amendment.

I am a bit taken aback by Fianna Fáil's suggestion that unnamed community groups are jumping up and down because they have been upset by this proposal. That is not the case for the groups that I have dealt with such as Citywide, the USI and Peter McVerry. The political parties in both Houses have changed their position all of the time such as the Green Party, People Before Profit and AAA. Also, the justice committee of these Houses, as indicated by the Minister of State herself, also supports this position.I am not convinced that we will have this conversation at a later stage because the legislation was also supposed to include the provision for medically-supervised injection centres and that measure has been separated from the Bill. I do not accept the suggestion either that the Bill is a response to what is happening in the north inner city because the Bill is before us is a reaction a year later to the High Court case of March 2015. I do not accept the suggestion that the Bill is motivated by the recent murder spree in the north inner city because it is a response to a legislative need arising, as I indicated, from a High Court ruling. It is not acceptable to constantly state we can have the conversation some other time.

I got support from the Minister of State’s colleagues in Cabinet in the previous Government. The Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, was very supportive of the idea to have injection centres. The initiative was passed by the Cabinet and was to be included in the Bill before the House but it has been separated and we will have to deal with it another time. The Minister of State indicated the Bill would be likely to come before us in the autumn. She said we would deal with decriminalisation at some other stage. There were 679 drug and alcohol-related deaths in 2013. Addicts have very limited access in terms of having a voice. What Senator Ruane, Senator Black and others have said is that it is surely a humane approach - that in the cold light of day in a courtroom situation, it should be a defence for somebody to admit to being an addict and that he or she is in possession of drugs because of the addiction. I am sure any prosecuting garda, judge or jury would be able to make a determination that the nature of the addiction is a reasonable defence for the individual.

To reinforce what we have always done because we have always done it does not stand up to scrutiny. I will press the amendment on Report Stage tomorrow. I urge the Minister of State to reflect on her position between now and then. I also ask those Members who have spoken against the amendment to think again about it and perhaps to re-engage with people who know what they are talking about. I mentioned the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign, Fr. Peter McVerry, and the report that was done by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence. USI has again come out in favour of the decriminalisation of drug use. We are not resiling from the ideal of a drug-free society. That is absolutely not the case, but what we want is for it to be realised that somebody with an addiction needs help, support, compassion and medical attention, and does not need to be sitting in a courtroom or have a criminal conviction because of the nature of his or her medical need.