I support fully this Bill by my Sinn Féin constituency colleague, Deputy Mark Ward. In terms of its efforts to restrict the sale, possession and supply of nitrous oxide products, it has added to the whole debate. It should absolutely be lauded. In that context, while I take on board what the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, said about EU legislation and having to give notice and having to look at the legislation because it was seen only in the past while, we know that Second Stage Bills coming from Opposition parties cannot proceed to Committee and Report Stages unless the Government facilitates that in any event. There is a lot of time, even up to nine months, that could have been used to prepare the Bill for the next Stage and have that proper debate, so I do not see the excuse as being particularly valid. I do take on board what the Minister said about the existing legislation that makes it an offence to sell nitrous oxide if it is for unpermitted use as a drug product. The question I ask there is that if that is the case, how come that legislation has not been enforced to the extent we would like it to be enforced over the past ten years? That is a question that has not been answered. If this legislation, as proposed, makes it a little heavier and puts greater onus on the supply chain, it can only be a good thing. There is the question, as others have mentioned, if this were to go through tomorrow, no matter what way it were to be amended, as to whether the Garda has the resources to follow up. Will the inspection authority have the resources to follow it up and prosecute where required? These are questions that have not been answered. There is a wider issue as well, as Deputy Gannon and others have referred to. I go back to one of the comments made by one of the Sinn Féin contributors, who quoted Ciara Murphy, project leader at the Finglas youth service, who highlighted on "Prime Time" how the price of alcohol is actually driving the use of nitrous oxide. If anything, that should be seen as a slight positive in the sense that alcohol still causes a significantly higher number of deaths among young people than nitrous oxide. Alcohol is one of the biggest risk factors for death and disability in 15-to-24-year-olds in Ireland, and one in four deaths of young men aged 15 to 34 is directly related to alcohol. With 50,000 children starting to drink in Ireland every year, anything we can do legislatively through the pricing mechanism - the minimum price, etc. - is a good thing. Almost 50% of young driver fatalities - I am going back now because I do not have the up-to-date legislation - from 2013 to 2017 had toxicology for alcohol. More recently, we have toxicology for drugs as well. Nitrous oxide usage is a growing public health concern. I and my team, when we go around, are picking canisters up left, right and centre. We have been told by the local authority that you can put them into domestic bins. Where they go after the domestic bins, however, is definitely another question because they can cause safety hazards for workers sifting through that rubbish, so it is better to bring them to recycling centres. I mentioned the other day, in relation to nitrous oxide but during debate on the vaping legislation, that there is a different angle in terms of the storage, supply and monitoring from a safety and environmental perspective in relation to nitrous oxide canisters. Tonight is not the time to digress too much in that regard but we have all seen them all over the place causing a blight on our landscape, so it is not just the numerous health issues, for young people in particular, but also the environmental damage. The environmental aspect needs to be brought back. I will talk for a second about the issue of the addiction in general. I note that this legislation deliberately, and rightly, seeks not to criminalise young people for possession of nitrous oxide canisters but no more than people caught with bottles of vodka or bottles of gin, there seems to be no mechanism for intervening from a public health perspective. When we had some of the debates at local authority and national levels about decriminalisation of cannabis, for example, the Portuguese model was often cited where it was seen as a health issue. In the context of this, I am not sure about the technical nature of this proposed legislation or if it can be worked in here but if people are caught in possession of nitrous oxide canisters, or indeed bottles of alcohol, it should be recorded, not as a criminal offence but to ensure that there is some form of intervention, whether it is through youth services, an education programme or some sort of mental health service, depending on whether the community gardaí are involved and know the individuals concerned. Too often, addiction spreads out. It covers a multitude. This just happens to be the addiction of choice for a lot of people in the current age. If we clamp down on this, they will find something else. There was an incident recently involving a poor young lad in relation to aerosol usage, for example. No matter what, people will try to find ways to get that buzz. It is the why people want to get that buzz as well as the how people want to get that buzz that needs to be tackled in the wider context. I am not trying to say, "There are other issues we need to look at; therefore, this Bill is not important." This Bill is extremely important. It needs to be brought to Committee Stage as soon as possible so we can have a proper debate on it. I thank my constituency colleague, Deputy Ward, along with other colleagues and the service who worked with him on this, for bringing it forward because it is very useful legislation. That has to be recognised.

Sentiment score: 0.06