Ireland’s Taoiseach (First Minister) Simon Harris – “It sounds counterintuitive to me that there would be mixed messages sent in relation to cannabis because I do think there are real health dangers in relation to cannabis.

Micheál Martin’s party has said that Ireland should follow the approach taken by countries like Spain, Portugal and Malta, where legal restrictions on cannabis have been eased.

However, Fine Gael has pushed back on the plans with Mr Harris saying he believed there needed to be a health-led approach to addiction, but he disagreed with moving to decriminalise casual drug taking.

“Do we really want to move to a point in Irish society, really want to move to a point where we’re decriminalising drug taking? Not sure, and I certainly don’t,” Mr Harris said.

I do think when it comes to things like drugs and decriminalisation, I think we need to be very careful on these things.

“I’d be very interested to know the views of the ICGP. What does the College of General Practitioners think about the proposal to decriminalise drug?”

Mr Harris said that Fianna Fáil needed to set out what drugs they believed should be decriminalised and how much would be covered under their plans.

He added that the government has moved on initiatives to deal with smoking and vapes on public health grounds, but that moves on cannabis would be counterintuitive.

“It sounds counterintuitive to me that there would be mixed messages sent in relation to cannabis because I do think there are real health dangers in relation to cannabis.

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