The Labour Party has accused Justice Minister Helen McEntee of focusing on the wrong justice issues as the number of overdoses spiked and the first gangland murder of the year occurred.
Aodhan Ó Ríordáin said that if the people overdosing were cattle they would get more political attention.
Minister McEntee got Cabinet approval on Tuesday to repeal the century-old Censorship of Publications Acts.
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The legislation to be repealed originally arose directly from a recommendation made by "the Committee on Evil Literature", which had been appointed in 1926 and saw over 12,000 publications banned.
Speaking on the plinth of Leinster House on Tuesday morning, Labour’s justice spokesman Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said that while repealing the censorship laws was “well and fine”, there are other justice issues that need to be addressed.
He made the comments following the first gangland murder of the year last weekend that saw Brandon Ledwidge, 23, shot dead at his home in Finglas.
There has also been an increase in the number of heroin overdoses in recent weeks.
“The biggest issue in communities is policing, the number of guards that we have and the number of guards we have resigning from the force,” Mr Ó Ríordáin.
“Again, we have issues around the drugs side of things. I am very critical of the Government for not moving on the injecting facility, which could be a mobile facility.
“We had 54 overdoses in the last period of time.
“I always say if those who are overdosing were more politically powerful and even if they were cattle, they would get more of a political reaction.
“We just do not value the lives of those who are heroin users. That's blatantly obvious to anybody who observes these things.
“We had, we believe, a drug-related murder over the weekend. These are the issues that communities are facing.
“Issues around censorship laws are all fine.
“But when the feelings from communities is that Government is not moving on Garda numbers, when morale within the force is so bad that you have such a number of resignations, when you have that number of overdoses, when, clearly, we're not moving on drug policy in the way that we should be, well then Government really needs to refocus on what's important.”
Mr Ó Ríordáin said that it is “not as simple” as saying that if there were more Gardaí on the streets there would be fewer gangland murders.
He also said that people need to be “realistic about the drug trade” and make it less “lucrative”.
He added that it is a “worry” that last weekend’s gangland shooting could lead to further incidents as he stressed these events cannot be “normalised”.
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