Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I think today's announcement of the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use to look at the issue of drugs and what our approach should be from the perspectives of legislation, education, health and public policy in general, is very welcome. To me, drug abuse and the hardship and turmoil caused by it to thousands of families the length and breadth of this country is one of our biggest challenges in modern Ireland. This time last year, I called for the drugs assembly, as other people did as well. I remember tabling a Commencement matter and ironically enough, at the time the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Deputy Naughton, came in and took the Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister. She is now the Minister of State responsible for drug policy in this country. As part of my work with the Oireachtas committee on justice, between 2011 and 2020 we did a significant body of work looking at the approach to drugs and drug abuse in this country. We travelled to Portugal and looked at the Portuguese model, which is very much a health-based model as opposed to a justice-based model.

I believe that significant progress has been made in terms of viewing the issue of drug abuse as being a health issue as opposed to a justice issue. Many people, including Members of these Houses, have worked hard to change that thinking somewhat in this country. This is without doubt, going to be the most important citizen's assembly that we will have in the lifetime of this Oireachtas. I hope its recommendations will be ground-breaking and that action will be taken swiftly afterwards because as I said, drug abuse affects thousands of families.It has got a grip on our young people. They are prevalent in every town, city, village, parish and street in this country and unless we take it head on and deal with it in a sensible, informed way, we will not win the battle. The citizens' assembly has a huge job of work to do and I wish it well with its very important deliberations.