Paul Murphy Criticises Backsliding on Drug Decriminalisation

Thanks a lot, Chair, and thanks a lot to the Labour Party for bringing forward this motion. Decriminalisation of all drugs has been People Before Profits' policy for very many years. We were delighted to see that this was finally adopted as a consensus cross-party position in the interim report of the Committee on Drug Use, which was then chaired by Gino Kenny, RTD, and published last October. The interim report recommended that decriminalisation of possession for personal use should apply equally to all illicit drugs. Importantly, it also made clear that this should be done by repealing Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. In other words, that we should adopt a de jure as opposed to merely de facto approach to decriminalisation to ensure we have a consistent application of the health-led approach that everyone in this House pays lip service to, but I'm doubtful of their actual commitment to. The benefit of that, as actually has been outlined already, is to remove the risk of discriminatory discretion being given to the Gardaí in relation to whether they prosecute marginalised individuals or not. So, that was the position. All the parties agreed to that position after discussion, after looking at the evidence. Then we went into the general election, where Fianna Fáil, in fairness to them, promised in their election manifesto to, quote, decriminalise drug possession for personal use, making no distinction between cannabis and other drugs, only to be then criticised by Fianna Fáil for effectively being soft on drugs, abandoning the position that they'd arrived at through a discussion based on evidence for cheap right-wing populism, and Fianna Fáil saying only that they would, quote, will continue to implement with Angarda-Shia Kona a health-led approach for people in possession of drugs for personal use, criticising Fianna Fáil for their position in terms of decriminalisation, and then with Fianna Fáil backsliding in the face of that criticism from Fianna Gael, saying that when they wrote about decriminalised drug possession for personal use, actually, they only meant decriminalisation of cannabis, which clearly, it made no sense that that's what they actually meant. They meant what they wrote, which was the agreed position of all the parties, and is the evidence-based position, but backslided in the face of kind of leaning into right-wing law and order populism by Fianna Gael. So it's backsliding in the general election, and that's reflected in the programme for government, which makes no mention of decriminalisation, and uses similar language to the Fianna Gael manifesto, saying it will, quote, commit to a health-led approach to drug addiction and divert those found in possession of drugs for personal use to health services. And for me, this is just, like, kind of every debate I've been in on drugs over the past number of years here, you have the words health-led approach, you know? They kind of, they say it every time they speak about it, the Taoiseach, the Tana, health-led, health-led, health-led, but with no real content to it, because the language there, it could mean decriminalisation, or it could mean, and I suspect it does mean, continuing with the flawed health diversion approach, where drug users can be diverted to health services the first two times they're caught in possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use, but after that, they're dealt with under Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, condemned to be another victim of the failed war on drugs. So the three strikes and you're out approach is a stupid approach, bluntly, to take to people who are suffering from drug addiction. The experience with addiction is that it can take far more than two or three attempts to get off drugs, especially, and I'll come back to this, when addiction, treatment and rehab services are so massively underfunded and massively oversubscribed that in reality they're non-existent for many people in addiction. It's why we have the highest levels of drug deaths in Europe, a disgraceful situation for one of the wealthiest countries in the EU, and that is an expression of the scale of inequality in this country. It's also why more than 70% of people in prison suffer from some form of drug addiction. That's at least 3,889 people out of a total prison population of 5,556. The entire repressive system of courts, of prisons, could be radically reduced if instead of criminalising people for their addictions and expanding the prison system like the government is doing at the moment, instead they prioritised addiction prevention and treatment. It costs €99,000 to keep one person in prison for a year. That's €385 million a year that we're currently spending to keep people with addiction problems in prison. Imagine if that money instead, what a massive expansion that would be if we instead put that money into prevention, treatment and rehabilitation programmes and tackling the inequality, trauma and adverse childhood experiences that draws people into addiction in the first place. Instead, we have a situation where there's only 20 addiction counsellors working across the entire Irish prison service, one addiction counsellor for every 277 prisoners, of which about 200 are likely to be addicted to drugs. That means no chance of getting access to treatment if you're serving a prison sentence of less than a year, which is the case for many prisoners on drug offences. I hope, I urge, that the government reconsiders its backsliding on this vitally important issue. Trump in America is relaunching the failed war on drugs, but we do not have to follow him blindly over every cliff he goes over. The government is backsliding as part of this rightward trend in politics, in terms of military spending, in terms of abandoning climate targets. It mustn't do this with drugs policy as well. We should actually be going in the opposite direction, not just decriminalisation of drugs for personal use, which still leaves drug distribution and supply in the hands of criminal gangs, but fully legalising them with state control and regulated distribution and supply. It's the only approach that will allow for government regulation to ensure safety for users and eliminate profiteering on misery by either criminal gangs or private corporations. The Committee on Drugs Interim Report also made proposals and steps in that direction through a consensus cross-party recommendation, quote, that steps are taken to introduce a regulatory model for certain drugs with particular reference to the development of an Irish not-for-profit regulated cannabis market. The recommendation to develop not-for-profit cannabis clubs is a sensible idea that should be pursued by the current government. I'd also just finish on this that, like, in my mind there's two aspects to a health-led approach to drugs, neither of which the government takes. One is to actually have decriminalisation or legalisation, but the other is to actually invest in the health supports for people who are suffering from drug addiction that the government pays lip service to. But I had a topical issue earlier with the Minister in relation to the funding of our local drugs and alcohol task forces and, like, the evidence is there that what is happening is a slow strangulation over years of our task forces. So the government, when the rhetoric has shifted towards having a health-led approach, the funding has been cut over the same period of time. So over the past 10 years, while total funding for the health service has almost doubled, funding for local drugs and alcohol task forces has fallen by close to 5%. And we had a back and forth earlier with the Minister in terms of the impact of the latest budget on funding for the task forces. And it seemed clear to me at the end of our discussion that the truth is that funding is being cut again. Because the task forces, these are the people who are doing the work on the front line, they're being asked to pay an extra 1.5% in the first year in terms of auto-enrolment and no funding is provided for that. That is a cut in real terms. No ongoing core increase in funding to address the cost of living, the inflation is provided. That is a cut in a real sense. You have the presentation of the important project of DRIVE, a drug-related intimidation and violence engagement project. You have the Minister earlier talking positively about it. You have a website promoting it. It's vital that we assist families who are facing horrendous intimidation over drug debts. And yet, and the Minister's going to come back to me so I welcome that, but yet in the Budget Fact Sheet no reference to any funding for it whatsoever. So the announcement of a new project and then, for example, where in Whitechurch and my constituency where 75 families have been supported by WASP from money that they were able to access under the Community Safety and Innovation Fund, that money is over. On the 1st of January, they're asking are they going to be able to support these families anymore because no funding is provided under DRIVE. And it's not just a question of funding, but I think that's kind of where the rubber hits the road. But in general, and the Minister spoke earlier about how the task forces are, I think, an integral part and they won't be excluded and so on. But the bottom line point is that they are being excluded from the reference group to support the implementation of the new drugs, national drugs strategy. So, again, the people who are on the front line in the communities most affected by drug addiction are being left out of the vital conversations in terms of shaping the national drug strategy. So, none of that, unfortunately, augurs well in terms of an approach that takes the world's health-led seriously and actually follows that up in terms of decriminalisation and in terms of funding for all of our drug services. Thanks. Thanks, Deputy Mark. We moved in.