An Cathaoirleach: Apologies have been received from Deputy Máire Devine and Senator Nicole Ryan. I am delighted to open the 21st public meeting of the joint committee and the fifth in our module on legal issues. I welcome our witnesses, Dr. Cian Ó Concubhair, assistant professor in criminal justice at Maynooth University school of law and criminology where he lectures in criminal law and policing and Dr. Ian Marder, associate professor in criminology at the same school, whose research focuses on policing and translational criminology. Ms Fenella Sentance from Release is joining us online. They are all very welcome.

Dr. Cian Ó Concubhair: Gabhaim buíochas le baill an choiste as an gcuireadh labhairt leis an gcoiste. I am very grateful for the opportunity to again speak with the committee as it undertakes its potentially generationally significant legislative work in the area of drugs policy. I hope through my expertise and experience that I can be of assistance to the committee today.

I am assistant professor in criminal justice at Maynooth University school of law and criminology, where I lecture on criminal law and policing. I research across the criminal law and policing, with a particular focus on police powers, governance, accountability and legitimacy. As I noted in my last appearance before the committee, I speak today not just as a researcher in these areas. I am also one of a handful of criminal justice scholars with direct personal experience of the criminal justice system. In 2009, while working as a stonemason and before I began my academic career, I was prosecuted and convicted for cultivating cannabis for sale or supply, receiving a five-year prison sentence fully suspended.

I welcome the committee’s interim report recommendations, particularly that section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 be repealed. Repeal of section 3 is the only way to achieve the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use. The citizens’ assembly’s message was crystal clear that Ireland should remove the harmful stigma around drug use. Section 3, like all criminal offences, is designed to impose stigma. The only way to remove this stigma is to decriminalise drug use by repealing section 3. Decriminalisation, or for that matter legalisation, does not equate to State endorsement or normalisation of an activity. The decriminalisation of suicide in 1993 did not and does not constitute State endorsement or normalisation of suicide. The State can legally permit conduct while actively and successfully dissuading and discouraging it through other legal and policy measures. Ireland’s current law and policy governing tobacco is an excellent illustration of this.

I will address a number of points raised by recent witnesses before the committee at the end of February this year. First, it was claimed that repealing section 3 will legally compromise An Garda Síochána’s ability to police the sale and supply of drugs. This is an incorrect reading of the 1977 Act. No other drug offence depends on section 3 and search powers for other offences under the 1977 Act will remain intact following repeal of section 3. I am very happy to take the committee through the legislation to explain this in more detail.

Second, it was claimed that An Garda Síochána does not really use section 3 to prosecute drug users and instead uses it to focus on drug dealers. This is not accurate and the evidence shows this. One only needs to attend Portlaoise District Court in the months following Electric Picnic every year to see that An Garda Síochána routinely prosecutes drug users in very significant numbers. It should be noted An Garda Síochána’s claim about the necessity of section 3 to prosecute drug dealers is a significant departure from its previous position on decriminalisation. In 2024, before this committee, An Garda Síochána claimed section 3 was essential to gather intelligence, in other words, by threatening drug users with prosecution and conviction unless they provided information about suppliers. However, this position seems to have been abandoned by An Garda Síochána through its apparent enthusiasm for the proposed Garda drug diversion scheme.

Finally, it was claimed that if section 3 were repealed, this would make it easier for drug sellers and suppliers to avoid prosecution. There are many things to say about this kind of evidence-free claim, but speaking as a retired and reformed drug dealer, you would be wildly unsuccessful in that business if you only transported tiny amounts equivalent to personal use. The committee has already heard from police in Portugal that decriminalising drug possession there has not impacted on its ability to police drug dealers....

[Click here to read the full debate on the Oireachtas website]

Written statements:

• Dr Cian Ó Concubhair (Assistant Professor in Criminal Justice, School of Law and Criminology, Maynooth)
• Dr Ian Marder (Criminologist, School of Law and Criminology, Maynooth)
• Ms Fenella Sentence (Solicitor Apprentice, Release)