Angela Merkel is obviously his top priority when it comes to sucking up but Enda really needs to get the Shake ‘N’ Vac out and put the freshness back into the Oireachtas floor-coverings, which are more stain at this point than pattern.
Before entering the corridors of power, we’d gotten to shake a leg to Natty Wailer and Mojo Gogo who were among the acts playing at the pro-Cannabis Regulation Bill rally taking place across the road in Molesworth Street. Despite the Arctic temperatures, 600 hardy souls gathered to show their support for Luke Flanagan who was presenting his motion to his fellow TDs. Well, the 20 of them who could actually be bothered to be there.
You probably know by now how the vote went; 111 against, 8 for.
The scale of the defeat was always going to be massive given Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour and Sinn Féin TDs having to go with the party whip.
What’s impressive is that of the small number of deputies whose minds aren’t made up for them, that many unequivocally supported Flanagan.
There were particularly strong contributions from Joe Higgins and Clare Daly who unlike FG’s Michelle Mulherin – we’re beginning to think that the member for Mayo is an elaborate Chris Morris-style prank – actually sounded like they knew what they were talking about.
It may be coincidental – we think not – but during the two debates on the bill, Ministers Alex White and James O’Reilly both said that cannabis-based medicinal drugs will soon be available in Ireland on prescription, which is itself a victory.
Also heartening were Labour TD Michael McNamara lambasting the government’s lack of a coherent drug policy and Fine Gael’s Paul Connaughton acknowledging that, “We are now out of kilter with western Europe on how we treat possession of cannabis.”
The motion may have been defeated but the bill, as Deputy Flanagan tells us, is far from dead.
“Because of the complexities of the bill we didn’t get to introduce it to the Dáil on the Thursday straight after the motion calling for the government to legalise cannabis,” he tells us. “I’ve now chosen Wednesday November 20 to stand-up in the house and speak for five minutes and outline the details. It then stays there for a year until I decide to bring it back again to the Dáil. In addition to that, we’ve spoken to a number of senators and there’s a big appetite for it to be debated in the Seanad.
“I’ve also written to the Dáil Justice and Health committees urging them to invite the Chief Constable of Cambridge Tom Lloyd; the current Chief Constable of Durham, Mike Barton; the Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Dr. Donald Tashkin and Doctors Garrett McGovern and Cathal Ó Súiliobháin to address them. Furthermore, in conjunction with NORML Ireland I’m planning ten or twelve public meetings around the country where experts in favour of legalisation will get to present their cases.
“The Cannabis Regulation Bill has succeeded in making this a mainstream issue, which won’t be going away.”