Tánaiste: Middle Ireland facilitates gangland crime 'by snorting coke and popping pills'

The Oireachtas Drug Use Committee published a report earlier this week that called for the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use.

Tánaiste Simon Harris has urged caution about decriminalising drug use as he raised concerns about those “facilitating” gangland crime by “snorting coke, popping pills, and smoking joints”.

He said that while people in addiction should have access to healthcare, it is “really annoying him” that “Middle Ireland’s” use of drugs is not being examined.

The Oireachtas Drug Use Committee published a report earlier this week that called for the decriminalisation of drugs for personal use.

It made 161 recommendations across family and community supports; kinship care; intergenerational trauma; addiction, sports and wellbeing; young people; substance use and neurodiversity; women, drug use and addiction; the National Drugs Strategy; nitrous oxide and other inhalants; and legal and policy issues.

The committee said that, based on the evidence it examined, "decriminalisation for personal possession is not likely to result in an increase in consumption".

Speaking in the Dáil, the Tánaiste said that the Government has to be “very careful here”, and that “everybody wants to see people who have a drug addiction get access to healthcare”.

'Really annoying'

However, he said there was a “group in the middle” that people were not talking about, and it was “really annoying him”.

“There’s a group of people who aren't addicted to drugs and who aren't involved in a gangland crime,” Mr Harris said.

“But they're facilitating it by snorting coke, popping pills, and smoking joints, and they're often in Middle Ireland.

“I don't support any idea that we would suggest that behaviour is appropriate. In my constituency or somewhere else, you might buy those illegal drugs and actually not realise or care that you are funding absolute misery, criminality, the threats to children's lives and everything else in other communities.” 

Mr Harris said there must be engagement with the Gardaí and the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), as there was a “number of complex issues” around the proposals, adding that people cannot think that taking drugs is a “consequence-free activity”.

The Oireachtas committee went a step further than the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use, which said possession should still remain illegal in law but that a form of decriminalisation should be adopted in practice.

The report of the committee, which was tasked with examining the January 2024 assembly findings and making its own recommendations, will now go to the Government, which must give a detailed response and hold an Oireachtas debate.