Senator Malachai O'Hara: In my inauguration speech, I said that I wish to be a Senator for all and that I want to amplify voices in the North. The voices I will talk about today are those of people who have experienced drug deaths and of their families. Yesterday, the Northern Ireland Assembly debated a motion on drug deaths, but it was poor and vacuous and did not address the root cause of the issues or use radical measures to address the issue. When I say "radical" I do not mean extreme, I mean it in the Greek understanding of the word, that is, we need to go to the root causes of these issues. In Northern Ireland, drug deaths have tripled in the past decade. As I have repeatedly said, we are one of the poorest parts of western Europe and despite being legally mandated to have an anti-poverty strategy from 2006, it has never materialised. We are a society in the North that is recovering from conflict and we are traumatised. We have intergenerational trauma because of the conflict. We have never properly reconciled and there is still no agreement about how to address our past or an agreed narrative about most of the past.

Community and voluntary sector organisations are trying their best to alleviate drug deaths and support people struggling with addiction, but political instability, symbolised by the fact that for five of the past seven years and for almost 50% of the time since 1998 and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement we have not had a Government or functioning Executive. That is exacerbated by single-year funding, which means that organisations cannot plan ahead and many good people leave the sector. However, the community and voluntary sector should only be there when the state fails, and the state is failing.

Researchers say that Northern Ireland has the second highest level, after Scotland, of drug deaths among men aged 25 to 40. That is the Good Friday Agreement generation. They are being failed. The motion yesterday, positively, talked about a rehabilitation centre for the North, but it failed to address the other issues, primarily the fact that we do not have an overdose prevention centre in the North. I found it strange that all-island parties can support one in Dublin but cannot support one in Belfast or, cannot use the levers of power, where they have them, to ensure it happens. Glasgow is pushing ahead despite the outdated Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which is a reserved UK-Westminster matter. Scotland is pushing ahead because its Attorney General said there is no public interest in prosecuting people and, therefore, it is developing a centre.

I look forward to a committee on this issue being established after the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use. I look forward to its work, regardless of whether I will be a member. These are issues that could be addressed on an all-island basis in the context of substance use, policing, access to services and support. I hope the Leader of the Seanad will raise this through the Ministers to the North-South Ministerial Council.