Medicinal cannabis bill scrutiny
Deputy Kenny complained that criticism of his medicinal cannabis Bill came before the committee report was published and said patients were being ignored. The Tánaiste defended the committee process, said the Bill had serious flaws and unintended consequences, and stated that a medicinal cannabis access programme would be pursued through the Minister for Health.
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health's report on scrutiny of the Cannabis for Medicinal Use Regulation Bill 2016 was published at 12.30 p.m. yesterday. Before it was published, the Tánaiste's colleague, Deputy Kate O'Connell, appeared on a radio show basically lambasting the Bill. This is not the first time she has lambasted it. It is wholly inappropriate that the Deputy appeared on radio and was severely critical of the Bill before the report was published.
The report itself is shambolic, to say the least. It has missed out all clinical evidence on medicinal cannabis.
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Yes, I have. What will the Tánaiste do about this, because what has happened is that the Bill I introduced has been shelved? The situation in Ireland is that medical refugees are going to Holland and Spain-----
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-----to receive medical advice and treatment. The Government has to live with that.
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The Government has to look at people-----
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-----in this country with chronic pain being completely ignored. What is the Government going to do about that?
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There were very serious problems with the Deputy's Bill. It had very many unintended consequences and it was the health committee itself that decided it should not proceed to the next Stage.
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It was biased from the very start. The HPRA informed us as well.
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We have a health committee set up to examine and carry out pre-legislative scrutiny on Bills. When it examined the Deputy's Bill it found that it was not fit for purpose in the sense that there were unintended consequences, both legal and otherwise, including leakage of supply of cannabis to the recreational market-----
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How about opiates?
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-----and a lack of safeguards against harmful use of cannabis by patients. The use of medicinal cannabis has been taken on board by the Minister for Health. As the Deputy is aware, he asked for a report from the expert group. I believe we should be led by clinicians when it comes to this issue and he is making sure that there will be a medicinal cannabis access programme.