Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise two issues. The first relates to the Tánaiste's contribution to the Seanad last night. I believe it is time we invited the current Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, to the House. His Department seems to be completely incapable of giving factual information to the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach will have to correct the record of the House for a third time because of information that was given to him by the Department of Justice and Equality. It also appears that an email that was discovered, which was the centre of the controversy, was not communicated to the Tánaiste for a full week.

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, made a bizarre outburst in the Dáil last week when he accused my colleague, Deputy Alan Kelly, of conducting a smear campaign against him. As we are trying to get the bottom of this situation, all the while remembering that Sergeant Maurice McCabe is the person we should be most concerned about in terms of a smear campaign, I respectfully ask again that the current Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, be invited to this House to account for his Department's handling of the current situation.

I ask for a debate with the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Catherine Byrne, who currently has responsibility for the national drugs strategy. When the new strategy was launched in July, a commitment was given that a 12 month working group would be established on the issue of the decriminalisation of drug use. That was a welcome development, and as the Leader and the Members of the Seanad will know, myself and Senator Lynne Ruane have a piece of legislation which would give effect to the decriminalisation of addiction and drug use. We were willing to go with the new strategy and to give it the time and space it needed to bed itself down although we did not necessarily believe in having a separate strategy towards the end goal of decriminalisation of drug use. It is now November, almost December, however, and there is no sign of this working group being established. I respectfully ask that we invite the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Catherine Byrne, to the House to discuss the establishment of the working group on the decriminalisation of drug use. It is a very serious issue.

I believe there is broad agreement around the House as to how we could look at this issue, and there is great humanity in this House when it comes to the issue of drug use and addiction. We are determined that this working group will be set up, that it will do its work efficiently, and that at the end of a 12 month period it will come to conclusions that would hopefully lead us to adopt a drugs strategy such as that in existence in Portugal. However, four months on, we are no closer to having that working group established. I would like the Minister of State to come in so that we can work with her to ensure that we get that working group established and to work for those in our country who are suffering from the effects of addiction.