Ireland - Lenihan backs random drug testing for TDs (Ireland)

[Lunar Loops]

Like this is ever going to happen. This from The Irish Examiner:

Lenihan backs random drug testing for TDs

By Shaun Connolly, Political Correspondent
RANDOM drug testing for TDs was backed by a government minister last night.

Integration Minister Conor Lenihan said society needed to change its stereotypical views of who was abusing Class A substances, as he stated some politicians and other people in senior positions were habitual drug takers.

Mr Lenihan also said claims in a widely discussed book that a minister is a self-confessed cocaine user “could be true”.
The Dublin South-West deputy said he would welcome random drug testing in the Dáil.

The minister said employers should pursue the practice more vigorously.

“Drug testing is mandatory in the defence forces and for crane operators, I believe,” he told the Irish Examiner.

Mr Lenihan said it was a widely-held misconception that drug use was only a problem for the underclass. The minister said it also affected people in senior positions, including politicians.

“This is a very sensitive issue. People like to button hole drug-taking as something that is being done by the underclass,” he told RTÉ’s Marian Finucane programme.

Asked if he believed the claim in the recently published book that a minister was a cocaine user, Mr Lenihan said: “I just don’t know. It could be true.”

Mr Lenihan told the Irish Examiner he understood the allegation referred to a an ex-minister.

Fine Gael’s communications spokesman Simon Coveney is again to try and raise the matter in the Dáil tomorrow by demanding to know if the Taoiseach has questioned his ministers on the allegation.