Of course, the Social Democrats are going to support this Bill, but I first want to commend Deputy Mark Ward on having the diligence to bring forth such a comprehensive Bill. I also commend the heart he brings to this issue. We are supporting this Bill because quite clearly nitrous oxide misuse has become visible in too many communities because of the current free-for-all around access, particularly for children and teenagers. It is quite simply not good enough and is actually worse than not good enough. It is also the case - this was captured in the Minister's opening contribution - that the sale of nitrous oxide is already illegal under the psychotic substances Act and is already provided for under the children's Act. That screams another larger question, does it not? When I go up to watch a local football team on a Sunday morning, go for a walk through town or bring my dog for a walk in the morning, I see these canisters everywhere. We have heard stories - I know people talk to me about it in the constituency - and we have heard media reports about how many young people are consuming these poisonous products. We have also heard about the damage that is being caused, but I do not think one single shop has been convicted for the sale of these products. The Minister talked earlier about the illegality of these products, but there is a big flashing warning sign that despite how prevalent they are in front of our eyes, there is no enforcement. Deputy Ward has been told that the House will come back to it in nine months. However, as I support the Bill, I will support it honestly and not just simply as a box-ticking exercise because it will not be legislation on its own that will solve what people are seeing in our streets, parks and outside schools. The reality is that nitrous oxide admittedly exists in an awkward place. It is a legitimate product with lawful uses in healthcare and food preparation but it is very clearly being exploited and used as a harmful intoxicant. That is why I do not believe blunt criminalisation would work in this instance and it is very welcome that Deputy Ward is not going down this road. Doing nothing is also a choice, and that choice has left families and local communities feeling like the State has been absent. They will hear tonight that we are doing nothing for a further nine months and then for whatever time after that. At its core, the legislation introduces a licensing and regulatory system. Wholesales must be licensed and retailers must be registered. That is the spine of the Bill. There does not seem to be anything controversial in there to me. It simply brings visibility to who is selling nitrous oxide, from where and on what basis. It restricts sales to exempt purchasers only: people in businesses with legitimate reasons to buy nitrous oxide including medical professionals and food and catering businesses. It introduces a clear prohibition on sales to under 18s, including online sales and proxy purchasing. It also gives gardaí powers to seize nitrous oxide in public spaces where there are reasonable grounds to believe it is being used as an intoxicant alongside search, disposal and enforcement provision. Those are very meaningful steps. On an issue like this, clarity would be very helpful for all involved, especially the gardaí. It also very clearly matters to communities and to parents. I want to put something on the record that goes beyond this product because nitrous oxide does not exist in a vacuum. What people are experiencing in our communities is not just littered canisters; it is the normalisation of drug use and the presence of informal supply chains. In many areas, drug-related intimidation is making daily life not just unsafe but also unbearable. Families see who controls the spaces, young people know who supplies what and the State often arrives late or very rarely at all in some instances. The hardest part is addressing the demand, the culture and the perception of harm or lack thereof. Nitrous oxide is still treated by many as harmless fun when we simply know that is not true. The neurological damage, the emergency presentation and the long-term harm are very real and very terrifying. Schools are often dealing with this without supports, and parents are dealing with it without the answers from the State. I support bringing order to the supply chain, but I will not pretend this Bill creates the education, prevention or treatment pathways to make that regulation stick. That is where the wider failure in the drugs policy becomes impossible to ignore. I am the Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Drug Use. This committee was established to ensure our drugs policy is evidence-based, health-led and effective. Yet, as we stand here today, the committee is still waiting patiently for a copy of the national drugs strategy. In fact, we have asked and we have had very little contact from the Department as to when we will see a copy of that document, which is really important to the work of all of us. I would like to see some urgency and some leadership in this area that reflects the scale of the crisis that our communities are living with the length and breadth of Ireland. If the drugs trade is at the heart of intimidation, harm and exploitation in our communities, and it very much is, then we cannot keep treating drugs policy as something to be parked or delayed for a further nine months. This Bill very clearly shows what happens when urgency exists. Deputy Mark Ward has brought a very comprehensive Bill through two Stages now. It would be very worthwhile for us to explore this at the justice committee. I do not see what harm would come from allowing it to pass. On awareness, we also need to be honest about awareness campaigns. Awareness is a word we reach for when we do not want to fund services. Everyone says they want awareness campaigns but awareness is not automatically effective and is not automatically harmless either. There is strong emerging research that shows that poorly designed universal, skill-based interventions can lead to unintended harms, including increased anxiety and reduced well-being for some young people. That matters because if we charge into schools with a one-size-fits-all message, we risk failing to change behaviour while also increasing distress and poor-quality information. I want the State to intervene in the concept of awareness but I want it to do so in an evidence-based way. It must be properly co-designed with young people, targeted where needed, linked with real supports and evaluated honestly and consistently. A licensing and regulation system will only work if the body running it is properly resourced. This Bill allows for a licensing authority to be designated and I think at a committee level we could explore how that would work, what enforcement capacity it would have and how best compliance would be monitored at scale. The online market is another challenge. While the Bill addresses remote sales, the reality is that young people access products through platforms, social media and delivery routes that are notoriously difficult to police. Without serious work on platform accountability, customs controls and age verification standards that actually work, we risk displacing supply rather than stopping it. Displacement is a familiar pattern in drugs policy. If we restrict one product without building a prevention and support mechanism, the use simply shifts elsewhere. That is not a reason to do nothing, but it is a reason to ensure supply control is part of a health-led strategy and not a substitute for one. Seizure powers can also cut both ways. If they are used proportionally, they can and should prevent harm. If they are used bluntly, they can deepen it. If the only interaction a young person has with the State is a form of worthy confiscation on the part of An Garda Síochána, with the subsequent humiliation that comes with it, we risk entrenching disengagement rather than reducing harm. Enforcement must be paired with diversion, youth services and family supports. We will of course be supporting the Bill, but supporting it should mean supporting it as a foundation, not as a finished product. If this was allowed to progress to Committee Stage - I see no justifiable reason it should not - what we could be exploring at Committee Stage would be stronger traceability and record keeping, meaningful online age verification standards, sensible product capacity restrictions and a statutory link to health and education so that prevention is not left to those who are demonstrating improvisation in their schools and communities in the absence of State support. Above all, it should mean real resources because a register without enforcement is just a spreadsheet, and seizure power without follow-through is often just a headline. I assure the families and communities who I know will be watching debates such as this with interest that they are very clearly not imagining what they are seeing. They are seeing the effects of a drugs trade that is embedded, adaptive and too often unchecked. Too often communities are told that they have laws, as we were told earlier, but then they wonder why they never seem to be enforced. I support the Bill. I absolutely commend Deputy Ward on the work he has done in bringing it forward, I will be asking the Government to simply allow it to pass. I do not have much expectation because all too frequently during these nine months the Opposition brings forward a Bill and then on a Tuesday or Wednesday the Taoiseach will tell us that we do not bring forward any ideas. On Thursday the drugs committee will also be exploring the area of nitrous oxide and aerosol abuse and we look forward to scrutinising different areas of expertise within that also.

Sentiment score: 0.05