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If you watch or read one thing today, you should make it the videos and testimonies below from the powerful, personal, intense, and sometimes searing, debate in a Dublin City Council committee on Cllr Malachy Steenson’s motion opposing the recent Oireachtas Committee’s recommendation that drugs be decriminalised.
It’s well-known that the parts of Dublin city represented by these councillors have been devastated by drugs: families terrorised by pushers, young people and even children addicted, so many deaths from overdoses that its become commonplace. But its quite another thing to hear a councillor say he carried 300 coffins of neighbours and family who had died from drugs, or listen to a decent, hard-working, man share the deadly, destructive impact on his own family and on the community in which he was born and raised.
There is genuine, and often very moving, sadness and anger in these testimonies as councillor after councillor slammed the ‘woke liberals’ in the Oireachtas Committee and elsewhere who want drugs decriminalised but who never speak to the people and communities whose lives have been destroyed.
Cllr Steenson accused the Committee of catering to the “ruling class” who are “banging coke up their nose at the weekend and don’t want to get done for it”, while inner city children are dying.
His motion read: “This Area Committee rejects the findings of the Oireachtas Committee on Drug Use and confirms its commitment to oppose any legalisation or decriminalisation of currently illegal drugs and seeks a real commitment from the State agencies to finally bring an end to the cancer that has destroyed and continues to destroy parts of our area. A cancer that has got worse year by year and decade by decade where we now see children as young as ten involved in dealing and parents being violently pursued with immunity by drug gangs for the drug debts of their children.”
The motion was carried 8 to 4 by the sub-committee – and will now be sent to the full Dublin City Council meeting for discussion in September, which will be interesting. This is a real opportunity for local knowledge and public opinion to be heard, and perhaps to win out against the harmful agenda supporting reckless and dangerous policy at a national level.
We’ve posted the debate video in full at the end of this piece, but its worth looking at some of the individual contributions first because this was far more than a debate: it was a stark, deeply convincing, honest, heart-felt, persuasive discussion and an insight into the absolute folly of any move to legalise drugs in this country.
It should be required viewing for the TDs and Senators who inexplicably seek to have drugs – including heroin – decriminalised for personal use, even though medical experts have warned of possible dire consequences. It’s noteworthy that the SocDem councillors voted against the motion, as did the Greens. Gary Gannon TD of the SocDems has been a vocal advocate of decriminalising drugs.
‘RULING CLASS BANGING COKE UP THEIR NOSES’
Opening the debate on Tuesday (21st July) , Cllr Malachy Steenson said he found it incredible that he and other councillors including Nial Ring, Christy Burke, and Cieren Perry had been campaigning against the drugs problem in the city for for 40 years only for a Citizens’ Assembly and an Oireachtas Committee to “create a scenario where NGOs dictate government policy” and “justify the decriminalizing of something that we have opposed for decades.”
“This area and the inner city particularly has paid the price of drug dealing and drug use for the past 40 years since heroin started in the ’80s. We’ve now moved on from heroin to crack, to cocaine, to fentanyl, to more tablets being sold on Talbot Street, for instance, than are sold in all the pharmacies in the inner city,” he said.
“The real reason for these people wanting decriminalization is because many of them in the ruling class in this country are banging coke up their nose at the weekend and don’t want to get done for it. Don’t want to have their kids’ student visas stopped going to the US. Don’t want to pay any price for them. They are part of the problem. In fact, they are a bigger part of the problem, and they are the people who are driving the drugs and particularly the cocaine problem in this city.” he said.
“Yesterday we had the government talking about scramblers. The biggest problem with scooters and scramblers in the inner city is the supply and delivery of drugs by working-class young fellas to addicts in the inner city and to those out in the suburbs.”
“They talk about bringing a health-based approach. When those of us I’ve named here already started campaigning against drugs, we were told that methadone was the way forward. And we naively believed, because we listened to the HSE—or the Eastern Health Board, as it was at the time—they said that methadone would be a detox and a way out. I don’t know anybody who went since that time on methadone who has ever come off it. They’ve all either dead or they’re still on it,” the Independent Councillor said.
“We were told we’d get detox beds. We have no more detox beds in Dublin now than we had in the ’80s. And we have piled millions after millions into woke NGOs who have no real concern or interest in solving this problem. Their sole interest is ensuring that their projects continue.
And it’s not acceptable, and we will be opposed—and I will be opposed strongly, and many members in my community will be strongly opposed, to any decriminalization or legalization of currently illegal drugs,” he said.
“We need to stop the drugs trade. We need to implement the law as it is. We, again, just go back to the scooters. They’re proposing to, you know, say you can’t use a scooter under 18. Presently, the law says you can’t have one under 16, and they’re not implementing that. I want to see the law implemented in this state, and whether it’s Johnny from Clontarf or Ballsbridge caught with a bag of coke, they should be prosecuted and they should be brought before the courts. And if their lives are destroyed because of that, so be it, because it’s good enough to destroy the lives of inner-city people,” he said.
And Cllr Steenson hit out at what he said were “woke liberals” whose agenda on drugs would destroy the area he was born and reared in.
“I’m not going to sit back and allow woke liberals destroy my constituency and the area that I was born and reared in, and the area that my family’s come from. And I’m not going to sit back and allow woke liberals pursue their own agenda just so they can get high at the weekends,” he said.
WATCH
In his concluding remarks, Cllr Steenson spoke of the impact drugs had on his own family. It was pretty devastating to listen to. Those who want, for whatever selfish, deluded or nefarious reasons to have drugs legalised should be forced to answer the questions he raises.
He said “this is probably the most important debate for our constituency, and particularly the north inner city part of it, that we’ve had in this chamber since I’ve come in. When you talk about experts, you get the experts you pay for. You bring in the people who will give the opinions that you want to give you the conclusion that you want. The whole thing is a farce,” he said.
THE REALITY OF THE ‘WOKE’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS DRUGS
Referencing Cllr Christy Burke comments, Cllr Steenson said: “Christy mentioned over 300 coffins. I’ve carried many, many coffins, including four of my wife’s siblings who’ve died because of drug addiction.”
“I’ve a son in recovery. I’ve a daughter who’s still in addiction. I’m rearing a 16-year-old girl who we took—a grandchild of mine—from when she was three months because her parents were strung out,” he revealed.
“That is the reality of what you people are supporting,” he said, hitting out at those who wants drugs decriminalised. “What you’re effectively saying is, let’s have more of it. Let’s have more kids pay the price of the greed of their parents. And I totally reject this inequality nonsense. People take drugs because they want to. They take them because it makes them feel good. They take them in middle-class areas because it’s cheaper than drink. That’s the reality,” he said in an excoriating contribution.
“And what the woke liberal classes in this country want to do is to say, “I’m okay. I do it at the weekends. I’m in work in a well-paid job on Monday. I’m not out robbing to pay for it.”
“Whereas the people who are paying the real price are the kids in the inner city whose parents are strung out from morning till night,” he told the chamber. .
WATCH
Other Councillors made equally eloquent and passionate contributions, including Cllr Christy Burke (Independent) who has battled the scourge of drugs since the 1980s in the area, and who commended Cllr Steenson for bringing the motion.
He said he was “proud to say I was the founder member of the Concerned Parents in 1982 with a group of mothers in Hardwicke Street who saw their children being manipulated and some of them died.”
I CARRIED NEARLY 300 COFFINS
“I’m on the same page as Malachy has spoken out. The reason that this is going to be brought in is to prevent people who live in affluent areas who go out on a Friday, buy a bag of coke, get rid of it by Sunday, and go in and act as normal, that they’re not contributing to crime or to drug dealing in this city,” he said.
“Now, at the end of the day, we can have all the experts we like speaking. Here’s the experts who the committee didn’t speak to. I carried nearly 300 coffins in the north inner city in the ’80s and ’90s along with Joe Costello, along with Deputy Gregory, along with Nial Ring, Malachy, Ciarán, the whole shebang. And those mothers were never consulted,” he added.
“And I can assure you, as a public rep in that area for the last X amount of years, that if you go before—and I’ll arrange a meeting if they want to—go before every one of those mothers, see the misery, see how they hadn’t got the money to bury their children, see how they had to go to moneylenders to get it, see how we had to raise funds in the inner city to bury poor kids who died from heroin, adulterated heroin. And Chair, I’m speaking from experience of family members who lost their lives,” Cllr Burke said.
He said that while the Citizens’ Assembly which first recommended drug decriminalisation may have come “from good backgrounds and had good intentions – I would love to know, did they suffer any misery? Did they suffer deaths? Did they suffer having to pay out thousands and thousands of pounds to drug dealers because of their children who owed it to them?”
“And yes, the biggest killer in our area and throughout this country is adulterated heroin, is crack cocaine, and yes, there’s nothing done, we want to legalize it. Over my dead body would I ever agree to legalizing anything that create the misery in this city, in this country. Have a listen to the people. Go and look at the memorial in Seán McDermott Street. Look at the 300 names that we put up there at Christmas. Go and speak to those experts. Go and speak to those experts, and I will arrange it,” he said, challenging TDs and Senators.
“Any member of the Oireachtas, any member of the Citizens’ Assembly want to hold that meeting, and I said it to Jim Gavin at the time, the people in my constituency who suffered, the couples who died who left young children to be reared by their grandparents, that’s not on. Malachy is right with everything he said,” Cllr Burke said, urging others to speak out”.
Another long-time councillor, Independent Niall Ring, said that he wanted to be “associated 100% to Malachy’s excellent motion.”
He hit out at councillors who said that they opposed the motion on the basis that experts must be listened to, saying that evidence in the Lancet (a peer reviewed medical journal) had pointed to “the psychosis problems, the schizophrenia problems, the brain development issues for kids who take cannabis.”
“It’s just all there. The evidence is there,” he said. “How that Citizens’ Assembly came up with this is beyond me.”
NO SURRENDER TO DRUG BARONS
“But look, I don’t think we’re in a position to surrender to the drug barons and let them continue to destroy our neighbourhoods and kill our children,” Cllr Ring added.
“I 100% agree with this, and it’s about time we had a decent motion in this council – really we want to get the word out there, this is what we stand for in this area,” he said.
“Christy pointed it out, he did carry coffins. I was at funerals with him. He carried coffins of children. It’s—it’s unbelievable that people think they can sit here on their high moral ground and, as Malachy says, stuff cocaine up their noses at the weekend,” he added.
WATCH
Also supporting Cllr Steenson’s motion was Cllr Janice Boylan of Sinn Féin, Cllr Séamas McGrattan (Sinn Féin), Cllr Cieren Perry (Independent), Cllr John Stephens (Fianna Fáil) and Cllr Gayle Ralph (Fine Gael).
Cllr Perry said he opposed “anything that normalizes drug use”, adding “availability encourages use. Fact. In the middle of a mental health crisis, we’re talking about, , either decriminalizing or legalizing the high-strength weed. Councillor Ring has already mentioned that. In the middle of a mental health crisis, that’s just unbelievable.”
The 23-minuste debate tells you more about why drugs should not be decriminalised than all the endless baloney and hotair in other forums, including RTÉ. Bravo to the councillors for their courage and honesty. The four who voted against the motion have serious questions to answer – especially Janet Horner of the Greens who said “I think that focusing on the—on red herring debates like this in this chamber is not helping our communities.”
HOW THEY VOTED – PLUS FULL VIDEO
In favour:
Cllr Janice Boylan (Sinn Féin)
Cllr Christy Burke (Independent)
Cllr Séamas McGrattan (Sinn Féin)
Cllr Cieren Perry (Independent)
Cllr Gayle Ralph (Fine Gael)
Cllr Nial Ring (Independent)
Cllr Malachy Steenson (Independent)
Cllr John Stephens (Fianna Fáil)
Against:
Cllr Janet Horner (Green Party)
Cllr Feljin Jose (Green Party)
Cllr Ellen O’Doherty (Social Democrats)
Cllr Cat O’Driscoll (Social Democrats)
Absent:
Cllr Ray McAdam (Fine Gael)
Cllr Colm O’Rourke (Fine Gael)
FULL DEBATE
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