Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Like Senator Currie, I very much support the idea of deliberative democracy. We have inherited an old parliamentary system from the British, which we have not changed in any way shape or form. Having had the marriage equality and repeal of the eighth amendment assemblies, we know there is a value in citizens' assemblies taking those very complex issues and deliberating on them with heart and rigour, and coming up with solutions that had otherwise befuddled political communities. That was particularly the case with the repeal the eighth amendment, which took 30 years and a lot of stop-starts to do it.I remember being involved in the 2001 referendum campaign where we were essentially looking to roll back on the X case. Bearing in mind my experience of how difficult that campaign was, I am still sometimes shocked that 15 years later we had got to the situation where we were repealing the eighth amendment. It was in no small measure due to the compassion of the members of the Citizens' Assembly. If we had left it up to these Houses, we would still be fighting to organise it.

A directly elected mayor in Dublin is very badly needed. We are even behind our neighbours whose parliamentary system we inherited in terms of having a single political responsible accountable person in local government. We have handed it over to the chief executives - not even a city manager - and directors of services, who are not accountable and are not chiming with the needs of what people on the ground want. We have seen the example of the amount of student accommodation being built in Dublin city and a chief executive who did not understand frustrations over the developments that are happening.

I wish to speak to Senator Ruane's amendment. I heard Government Members speaking last night and today about how important it is. I am concerned that the Minister of State who is meant to be driving this agenda is not convinced of the need for decriminalisation and is certainly not driving it in government by setting up a citizens' assembly on the issue. I grew up in Dolphin's Barn in inner city Dublin in the mid-1980s and early 1990s. From a very young age I had internalised the heroin crisis and the AIDS epidemic that happened in those areas at the time. This can be a very difficult issue for me emotionally.

The case for decriminalisation and a health-based approach to drugs and substance misusers has been more than won owing to the advocacy of people like Deputy Ó Ríordáin and Senator Ruane who have argued that fully. It is a complex issue, but it is not actually that complex. Every day people are dying on our streets from drug overdoses. I understand the concerns of people in some communities who do not necessarily want injection centres close to them. It is based on fear. People need to sit down and talk to people with addictions to realise the positive impact on their communities of taking drugs out of the criminal underworld and taking a health response to the issue.

I am disappointed that when we are setting up two citizens' assemblies this is not one of the top priorities. This is the only citizen's assembly where we are talking about people's lives; it is a life-and-death matter that potentially transforms communities. If somebody falls into the drug use at a very young age it is very difficult for them to pull their life out of it. Those mistakes that people make at a very young age can follow them around for the rest of their lives - an issue Senator Ruane has worked on in terms of spent convictions.

Based on the example of Portugal, we know we can take a different approach. This is a medical issue and not a justice or policing issue, which has failed badly. I hope the Minister of State comes back before the summer with a proposal for a citizens' assembly, which is supported by many Government Deputies. The people who have been working on this have lost patience. I would have expected this to be at the top of the agenda.