TD: I took cocaine, ecstasy and hash – and I’m not alone
GREEN Party TD Neasa Hourigan has admitted using cocaine but said she stopped because she liked it ‘so much’.
The Dublin Central deputy said she believes there are other TDs and senators who have tried the drug and that it is ‘unbelievable’ when everyone says they have not.
In an interview with Hot Press magazine, Ms Hourigan said she tried the drug when she was in New Jersey and that she liked it so much that she had to stop.
She also admitted taking ecstasy and cannabis.
Asked if she had taken cocaine before, she said: ‘When I lived in New Jersey, I did try it. I’ll tell you: I tried it twice and I liked it so much I didn’t try it again.’
She added: ‘There’s 160 TDs, plus senators. Are we really saying that 160 people who have lived a life have not done multiple types of drugs? Like, that’s utterly unbelievable.’ On taking ecstasy, she said she had lived in Sweden in the 1990s and returned to Ireland during the height of the rave scene. Asked about that time and if she was part of the ‘ecstasy generation’, she said: ‘It was certainly on the up at the time. Yeah, 100%. It was that era when everybody was doing it. ‘I did a year in
Sweden, in my fourth year, and when I came back, all my friends were entrenched in that scene. I came into it late and I was like: “Oh God, this is like a thing now.”’ On her drug use, she said: ‘It didn’t change my life or anything. I wasn’t going looking for it every weekend. It wasn’t a big thing for me, honestly. I’ve tried lots of different things.’
Hot Press has been the publication of choice for many years for members of the Oireachtas to admit they had dabbled in drugs, with the vast majority of these admitting to smoking cannabis.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Ms Hourigan’s Green Party colleague Malcolm Noonan have all told the magazine they had used the drug. Regarding cannabis, Ms Hourigan said she feels the plant should be legalised. She said: ‘The potency has definitely changed in the last while.
‘People use that as an excuse not to decrim[inalise], whereas I believe that’s the reason you should decrim – because a completely unregulated, unchecked industry is increasing potency, so people don’t know what they’re getting.’