Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

My point is that if we continue the policy of criminalisation, of no control whatsoever and no regulation, we will continuously have this debate. I would argue that a better approach - and I think the majority of people would agree - would be decriminalisation of the drug user. I think that is a shift in public opinion but I think we need to go even beyond that and look at elements of legalisation and regulation. If we do not have that, what will happen and is happening is that criminal gangs will control the drug market. As long as that happens, we will have the complex issue of our prisons being three quarters full of people who are in the drug industry. We will constantly have these issues that we are trying to resolve and address unless we talk about the elephant in the room. If we do not talk about that, we will be back here in the next ten years talking about the exact same thing.