Deputy Gino Kenny: Today is the first day of the special Joint Committee on Drugs Use. Paul Reid attended the meeting and I was present. The recommendations from the citizens' assembly are about saving lives, but an article on the front page of yesterday's Irish Examiner stated that the European drugs agency's report found that Ireland has the highest rate of drug deaths in Europe. Shockingly, Ireland has four times the rate of drug deaths of the European Union This is really startling. Also there is a proliferation of synthetic drugs because, as I stated a number of months ago, alarming news is coming from outside Europe of heroin coming into Europe. It is not from Afghanistan but is a synthetic drug which is deadly in terms of overdoses. We have to have a meaningful intervention in terms of saving lives. The citizens’ assembly made radical recommendations but these have to be matched by radical action because, at the end of the day, this is about saving lives and we have to be radical about that.

Deputy Michael McGrath: I welcome the appearance of Paul Reid before the first meeting of the new Oireachtas committee which will examine and respond to the report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use. We await the outcome of that with huge interest and the Government will be prepared to make decisions arising from that. Drugs are an absolute scourge and we need to have a serious debate as a society about the prevalence of drugs and why people start taking illegal drugs in the first place. It is just so visible now in all parts of our country, particularly in our cities. It is entirely unacceptable and we need to have a very serious conversation about why people start to take illegal drugs in the first place.