Significant reforms, possession of drugs for personal use

drunkmonkey

What ever happened to the promised reform. I see a thread below where a chap is having problems getting citizenship over some pot and waiting for court.

They made a big hullabaloo about this last year, it was announced across all media. Why hasn't it happened or has it and the Guards are just ignoring it.

Published on Friday 2nd August 2019
Ministers Harris, Flanagan, and Byrne announce health-led approach to the possession of drugs for personal use

https://merrionstreet.ie/MerrionStreet/en/News-Room/Releases/Ministers_Harris_Flanagan_and_Byrne_announce_health-led_approach_to_the_possession_of_drugs_for_personal_use.html

Potential-Monke

Something else came along for them to pretend to care about so this was dropped, I'd imagine. The revolving door of court would take a hit if simple possession was to suddenly be a warning, so maybe someone got a stop put to it. All pure speculation of course, but money drives this country so wouldn't surprise me.

Peregrinus

A less cynical response might be that we have known all along that the implementation of the new policy would be a phased affair, and wouldn't proceed until (a) any necessary legislative changes had been identified and enacted; (b) a method for monitoring the operation of the new policy had been devised and put in place; and (c) criteria against which the success or failure of the new policy could be evaluated had been developed and agreed. An interdepartmental group run by the Dept of Health and with members from HSE, AGS, and Justice & Equality has been operating since late last year. It had the original target of rolling out the policy in Q3 of 2020, but I suspect that with Dept of Health and HSE resources having had, um, other calls on them in the first half of this year that timetable may slip a little.

Plus, over in the other thread that drunkmonkey refers to the the poster expresses concerns about two arrests for possession which happened at music festivals "last year", i.e in 2019. They may well predate even the announcement of the new policy.

drunkmonkey

Your right it's probably kicked down the road again. I assume it now needs to be revisited by next Ministers anyway.

Peregrinus

drunkmonkey wrote: »

Your right it's probably kicked down the road again. I assume it now needs to be revisited by next Ministers anyway.

Yes. Change of government always leads to review and reconsideration of existing policies. There wouldn't be much point in changing governments if this were not so.

But this policy shift wasn't a whim of the previous minister. It was the outcome of an interagency review with wide consulation with stakeholders, and the considerations which made it seem like a good idea last August haven't really changed. It could be derailed if one of the new Ministers has a very strongly opposed view, and is prepared to burn some political capital to stop it. But I think there's probably a head of steam behind it at this stage.

A bigger risk is that it loses priority because of the diversion of political attention and administrative resources to the Covid-19 pandemic, followed by the inevitable squeeze on finances due to the economic consequences. Bear in mind that the strategy involves diverting first offenders for health screening and intervention, with those identified as having problematic drug use being referred on to other services. That requires the establishment of teams of people trained and qualified to do the initial screening and intervention, plus additional resources for other more specialised services that are now to have more people referred to them.

If we're honest, the resources required to do this are probably less than the resources (police/legal/probation services) required to continue the present practice. But they are new and different resources and they need a budget and an allocation of funds that doesn't currently exist. And freeing up police, etc, resources doesn't create the new budget and funds, because the police, etc, won't be fired or have their budget cut; they'll just be put to doing more appropriate police, etc, work.

So, basically, some money does have to be found, and some resources do have to be squabbled over. And this is probably not going to be a great time for finding public money or fighting for additional resources, even for worthy policies. And that could threaten, or at least delay, the rollout of the new policy.