Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have come to the Chamber disheartened. I am not yet defeated but I am feeling quite defeated in a sense because of the lack of a date for the citizens' assembly on drug use in Ireland. Of course, the issues that will next be considered by citizens' assemblies are important but the issue of a directly elected mayor does not come with the same urgency as the issue on drugs.

To give some context, someone will die of an overdose every day this year. It will happen every day. The citizens' assemblies that are to be set up may have a quick turnaround and finish their work in nine months but every single day those assemblies are running, someone will die of an overdose. That is without mentioning the other impacts and harm caused by drugs and the lack of services for dual diagnoses. There is a lack of detoxification beds and aftercare beds. There is no access to a locked zone. The only treatment we have for assisted therapy in this country is methadone when Suboxone is available. We can talk about heroin-assisting treatments and trauma-informed care. The Keltoi facility closed to allow for Covid-19 beds and has not reopened. That provided the only trauma-informed care for addiction in the country. Where are there consumption sites and safe injecting facilities?

I have been engaging on this issue for 25 years. I used drugs when I was a child and then became a person who ran and developed addiction services. I now work on drugs policy. The lack of urgency on this issue is baffling. It comes down to the fact that the 319 deaths that will happen between today and Christmas Day do not impact the people in this Chamber or the Lower House in the same way they impact our communities. Some communities will feel every inch of those 319 deaths because addiction, chronic use and dependency are responses to deprivation and inequality. My fear is that we are not treating the matter with the urgency it needs because the focus will then be taken off the drug user and will be placed firmly back on the policymakers when we realise it is the inequality of one's conditions that leads to chronic use. We would then have to make real decisions about how we treat society, introduce legislation and make policies that negatively impact the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in this country. The moment we have a citizens' assembly in respect of this issue, we will see that there is zero evidence for how we implement drug policy or services in this country. Big decisions will then have to be made by the Government. I am asking the Government to take those decisions on. We cannot wait for nine months for the proposed citizens' assemblies to finish and for a citizens' assembly on drugs to be established because another 319 people will die while we are waiting.