Marie Sherlock: 161 Drug Recommendations - Will Minister Reply?

And Minister, as you know, the Joint Éireachtas Committee on Drug Use reported two weeks ago a very detailed report, 161 detailed recommendations, 134 pages, and I have to convey to you the deep dismay and disappointment with regards to your comments by way of response to that report some 24 hours after the publication, Minister. And my question to you today is, will the Department of Health issue a detailed response to each of the recommendations? Thank you, Deputy, for highlighting this very important issue. As you said, 161 recommendations. But first of all, I do, and I want to thank the Joint Committee on Drug Use for their work. I welcomed the report, Deputy, and I was in agreement with many of the recommendations. As the Deputy will be aware, earlier this year I published a draft, the National Draft Drug Strategy, and I delayed it. And the reason I delayed it was because I wanted to work with GE, which are Committee, and there was three things that happened in this. And this is why it's delayed, by the way. So it wasn't that we went ahead and did the drug strategy. I delayed it because of this. So the three things was, I wanted a public consultation to ensure that everything could be shared. So we did, as you know, we ran the public consultation. Then the next one was the stakeholders engagement process on the future shape of the structure under the HSE. And as you know now, Deputy, we have six health regions. So we were very mindful in this new drug strategy that we got every region involved. And the other one then was on the Committee of Drug Use. So we waited until your committee had your recommendations done so that we could work with you. So I just think that needs to be clarified there. So the committee's report set out their considerations of, which was the 36 recommendations of the Citizens Assembly on drug use. The views of the committee will contribute to the development of an integrated and evidence-informed health-led response to drug use. And I do acknowledge, again, the 161 recommendations made by the committee. And several of them, Deputy, will relate to the national drug strategy. And I have asked that these recommendations are taken into account during, when we have it finalized. Now, I'm hoping to have it finalized by the 1st of September. But what I will say is, and I think this is important, Deputy, for yourself and the committee and the great work that you've done. Many of the 161 recommendations are relevant to several government departments. So it's not just my own. It falls between other different departments. So I have requested that consideration is given to these with my government colleagues. So I am now working with my government colleagues on this. Yeah, and I'll come back in again. Thank you. That is certainly very welcome to hear. And can I genuinely say both to yourself and to the senior minister in the department, there is a real opportunity to show leadership. There's a real opportunity to show, to prove your credentials of getting things done with regards to this particular issue. Like our committee had hundreds of hours of evidence, 82 witnesses since April last year, incredibly extensive look at all the issues. And the reality is that you haven't outright rejected our recommendation decriminalization. There was an apparent misrepresentation of what the citizens assembly actually said, and you've conflated decriminalization with legalization. And that to me is wrong. Because the reality is the issues are way too serious for that. 343 people lost their lives to drug induced or there were 343 drug induced deaths in our country back in 2022. That's the latest available data. We know there are prisons, over 80% of our prisons have people with addiction. Look at our communities. We need to change how we do things on drugs. And to be honest, you rejecting one of the recommendations less than 24 hours after publication is frankly not good enough. It is a knee jerk response and it's anti evidence. No, no. And thank you again. And as I said, I want to thank you for your, your work on the drugs committee. And as I said, that 161 recommendations, the vast majority of them will be actually in the new drug strategy. But one of your recommendations was, which was the misuse of drugs act 1977, which falls under section three legislation that does legalize drugs that actually legalizes drugs. And I think that is important that we tell people that the concern is the program for government reaffirms the government's commitment to a health-led approach to drug use. It's commitment to divert those found in possession of drugs for personal use to the health service. I and the minister for justice and minister for health, Jennifer Karen McNeill, who's with me now, have agreed a health referral scheme, which will commence on a, so we started in September. So the, myself and the minister working together with the minister O'Callaghan, we're looking at the 1st of September for the new drug strategy, the new health referral scheme, working together. And this is about, as you said, this is about the most vulnerable in our society. I have visited most services around the country. I see the effect drugs have on people themselves, on their families. And this is so important that we get this right. So I can assure you, myself and the minister are a hundred percent committed to this. The health progression scheme was promised back in 2017, so we're almost 10 years waiting for that minister. But the reality here is that you're fundamentally misunderstanding why we have recommended decriminalisation. It is not an end in itself. Depenalisation is to ensure that we break down the stigma and the shame of addiction in this country. It is to ensure that people can access services. It is to ensure that we end the war on drugs that has not worked. Walk around your community, my community, it has not worked. And if we are serious about a comprehensive health-led approach, and the Citizens' Assembly was very clear on this, a comprehensive health-led approach means dissuasion, diversion and decriminalisation. It can't be cherry-picking one or two out of the three. And it is a fundamental disappointment that you are just looking at some of the recommendations and not looking at them in the round. And it is a whole of government approach, and my appeal to both of you is that you bring this to the Cabinet, to the rest of the Ministers, because the Taoiseach's response that we have a health scheme in place for the last number of years and it's working, does not cut the mustard. It is not working. We had a total of cases and treatment of 15,422. So we are doing work, and I think that message needs to get out there. I visited, and I visit the services around the country, and I know we need to do more, and myself and the Minister are very mindful that we always need to put more funding into services. But there is services there. As I said, there is the challenges too. But we are providing services, and what we need to do is, this is about everybody working together. This is about a health referral scheme that will give people the option to look at that, working with what we have. We have nine SARE HSE workers now appointed across the country. They will be working with this, and I look at there's so much work being done on this, and I just think, while this particular one was the focus, I absolutely, and I can only say it again, your 161 recommendations, I went through most of them with my department. As I said, some of them do go to other departments. So there is work being done, and we are working with your recommendations, and we are working with other services. But I just think we waited, I actually waited for, as my department and Minister Karen MacNeill did, to work with everybody. Look, we won't get everything, but at least we are working on a health referral, and that's the way it will be.