I would like to comment on the Fianna Fáil legislation relating to drugs and some of the conversation that frames it. I am not completely in favour of that legislation. That is not because I am not in favour of protecting children. Sometimes the conversations around the grooming of children in communities regarding drug dealing are extremely short-sighted and misunderstood. We would be better served reinstating resources, the community development sector and the family resource centres in communities. I am not sure why we would introduce this legislation. I am not saying the grooming of children in terms of drugs does not happen in a minuscule number of cases but in the majority of cases that is not what is happening. I was a 12 year old drug dealer and I definitely was not groomed. It was born from poverty and lack of opportunity.

We need to have a real conversation about how we can prevent drug dealing as an option for young men and women in the community and not only a conversation about how we can find ways to prosecute people who end up in that position. I have fears about the relationship that currently exists especially between young men and gardaí in areas that are extremely disadvantaged. We have a history in Ireland where gardaí have withheld methadone from people who are on heroin so that they could extract information from them. Where is the conversation about what happens to young 12, 13 and 14 year olds when they are caught in possession of substances in terms of the relationship with the Garda? It is also more dangerous sometimes for a person to say where the drugs came from in order for the Garda to secure a prosecution if there is to be a legal offence.

We need to have a wider conversation about poverty and investment in communities. In the 1980s and 1990s there was a myth that drug dealers were standing outside schools in our communities roaring us out, offering us free heroin so that we would be hooked. It was exactly that, an absolute myth. There were no drug dealers outside our schools or youth clubs asking us did we want to use drugs. Usually, we sought them out ourselves at that young age or we were just surrounded by them. Although we need legislation to most definitely protect children who are being exploited, it is premature to introduce that without understanding the root causes of why drug dealing exists predominantly in communities that have been completely starved of resources for a long time. I ask that when we resume in the new year we would discuss how we can resource communities to prevent this and how we can give young people other options that do not seem as lucrative or as easy as the sale of drugs, but it is not easy in the end.

I second the amendment proposed by Senator McDowell opposing the attempted use of the guillotine by the Leader. I express my serious disappointment at the Leader's proposal this morning to attempt to guillotine through the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill on Committee Stage.

It is unworthy of the Leader. He has not-----

The Bill is on Report Stage.

Yes, Report Stage. Since 2016, a positive aspect of new politics and of the fact there is no Government majority in the Chamber is that the guillotine has not been used.

Yes, it has.

I think I am correct that it was attempted once and defeated.

No, we have used it on other business.

The guillotine is not good practice in the House and I am disappointed that Senator Ruane will support its use. Anyone who is not whipped to support the Leader's proposal should oppose it-----

The Senator has voted for the guillotine in the past.

Order.

It is a fair point.

The Heritage Act was guillotined.

I did not interrupt other Senators.

The Senator did interrupt other Senators.

Yes, I did. I apologise, but it was just during the Leader's contribution.

I could not restrain myself at that point. He proposed an outrageous guillotine. There is a weekly leaders' meeting at which we agree to the Order of Business and the schedules for the following week. It is a good practice that the Leader introduced in 2016. The matter before us, however, was never discussed or raised at the meeting last week and was not flagged with us. Senator McDowell is correct that it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the Minister's failure last night. He rushed into the Chamber to resume debate on Report Stage of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill but no officials or Fine Gael Senators were present. His own undue haste led to votes on two amendments going in a way he had not anticipated.

On a serious and sad note, I express my condolences to the family of the late Paul Anthony McDermott.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.

I had the pleasure of knowing Paul, as I am sure other Senators did. I knew him as a colleague and friend, and as such a respected voice on criminal justice issues. His untimely death at such a young age has come as a shock to all of us, and I express my sympathies to his family, friends and colleagues. I support calls for a debate on criminal justice, in light of Dr. Johnny Connolly's report. It would be a good idea to have a debate on criminal justice and our approach to drugs policy. I ask that we will have it in the new year, when it will be a fitting debate to have. In the debate, many of us will probably reference some of Paul Anthony McDermott's work, which will be entirely appropriate. He made such a contribution over the years to criminal justice scholarship, not just to practice and litigation.

Our former colleague in the House, Jillian van Turnhout, has asked me to raise with the Leader a point about the Lanzarote Convention, or the International Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse. Ireland, unfortunately, is on track to become the last of the 47 Council of Europe member states to ratify this important convention. Three states, including Ireland, have not yet ratified it. Azerbaijan is in the process of depositing its instrument of ratification before Christmas, Armenia is preparing to ratify it in the first quarter of 2020, but I am told there has yet been no sign of Ireland ratifying it. Will the Leader make urgent inquiries of the Government as to why we have not yet ratified it? I will do the same but it should also come from the Leader of the Seanad. It is so important that we be seen to lead on the issue and not lag behind. That we will be the last of the 47 Council of Europe member states to ratify the convention is shameful.