Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an tAire Stáit. I thank the Minister of State very much on behalf of all of the people in Clare, for all of the sports capital grants that the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, and the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, gave out. Everybody was very happy because after two years of no fundraising it brought a lot of joy to people all around the county. Go raibh míle maith agaoibh.

It is important that we have these citizens' assemblies. The climate action plan would not be here now only that we had a good Citizens' Assembly on climate. We know that assemblies are a good thing and we know that they work. It is important to get them off the ground as soon as possible. It is very important that we have an assembly on biodiversity. I have spoken at length about biodiversity loss. It is very important we get this kicked off as soon as possible.

A directly elected mayor would be good for democracy of course but I will not dwell on that too much. We have a promise of two more assemblies, one on drugs and one on constitutional reform and the right to housing. These need to be pinned down to a serious timeline.

The Green Party fully understands and appreciates the necessity to hold a citizens' assembly on drug use as soon as possible. This is why we secured a commitment to hold it. We got that in the programme for Government. We fully expect, as the Taoiseach confirmed last week in the Dáil, that the citizens' assembly on drug use will be in place and ready to commence its work later this year, and not in 2023 as some have said. The reason I am here is to get clarity on that. Even though I am from a small rural village, whether one is from Dublin's inner city or from the back of west Clare, drugs are ruining our country. We have not dealt with this properly and we will not until the citizens' assembly is set up. It would be good to get a commitment for the timeline on that citizens' assembly sooner, not next year but this year. We have a lot of staff, a lot of civil servants, a lot of Senators and a lot of Deputies. Surely to God we can get that started.

We have a lot of capable and well-paid civil servants so we should be able to get that citizens' assembly off the ground this year and not next year. It has to be this year because people are dying every day and there is a lot of abuse. There are many ripple effects of drug use and drug dependency that we have never really dealt with as a country. Sometimes I am seeing things on our streets that I have not seen since the early 1980s. It is at every level of society. It is not just in socially disadvantaged areas. It is in every corner of society, and we know that. I just wanted to speak from the heart to say that it is really good we have the biodiversity assembly and one for the directly elected mayor, but I do not believe that we as people can afford to wait on the drugs issues if our true job as politicians is to represent the people, or to delay to any length despite what has been said. The Taoiseach has committed to it happening this year. This is what I want to reinforce today. Go raibh maith agat.