Citizens' Assembly Dail Éireann — 2020-09-29 ============================================================ Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central I say again to the Deputy that it is not fair to say the Government does not care about drug recovery or addiction. I have been involved in that work as a former Minister with responsibility for health. I worked very strongly at that and we made much progress in our time with a multidisciplinary response and the creation of new approaches. The momentum must continue, and it will. What I am saying is that must continue irrespective of when we have that citizens' assembly. On the Seanad vacancy, in the first instance it is a Fine Gael Senator who has now left. That person was elected as a Fine Gael Senator and in the first instance it is a matter for Fine Gael to consider how it feels it is best to fill the vacancy. There will be some reflection on that but in the first instance it is a matter for that party. I will not pre-empt the consideration of another party. Others may want to nominate people as well to that position. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-09-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:37+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-09-29