Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-25
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I am delighted to hear of the progress with the family resource centre.
We need to be very careful here. Everybody wants to see people who have a drug addiction get access to healthcare - 100%. We are all very clear on that, and it has been the clear direction of travel in the Department of Health for many years. Everybody wants to see anybody who is involved in criminality and gangland criminality banged up, taken off our streets and met with the full rigour of the law. However, there is a group in the middle that we are not talking nearly enough about, and it is really annoying me. There is a group of people who are not addicted to drugs and not involved in gangland crime, but they are facilitating it by snorting coke, popping pills and smoking drugs. They are often in middle Ireland, or whatever we want to call middle Ireland. I do not support any idea that we would suggest that behaviour is appropriate. In my constituency or somewhere else, people might buy illegal drugs and not realise or care that they are funding absolute misery, criminality, threats to children's lives and everything else in other communities.
We need to be very careful here. We need to listen to the Garda and the Irish Medical Organisation. There are a number of complex issues. We will absolutely help people in relation to drug addiction, 100%, and absolutely lock up the gangland criminals. However, the gangland criminals exist because people are going around, taking illegal drugs and thinking it is a consequence-free activity, when it is bringing misery to many parts of society.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-25