Dr. Adrienne Foran:

It is relatively easier to get data for the opiate abuse mothers. Accordingly, it is relatively easy to identify a mother who is a heroin user or on a methadone programme because they have to be linked in. As Deputy Catherine Byrne said, however, the problem is they are mobile, fragile and difficult to track down. One hundred and six mothers book with us but only 68 deliver with us. We do not know if all of them run into problems. The other issue is there are other abuse problems on which we do not have good data. It is probably a social and cultural issue that in Ireland we are a bit uncomfortable in tackling the issues around alcohol abuse. We will tackle methadone or cigarette use but alcohol is a difficult one for us to tackle.