Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The nature of the Houses is such that I had other commitments this morning but I did have a look through the report last night. To be honest, it was very useful information. It is also sad to realise that it is so patchy throughout the country, we lack so much data and we obviously need a national study. We have no data on alcohol and we know what our relationship with alcohol is like in this country. In respect of babies being born with the syndrome and the fact it might be only one per year, due to the fact we have no data and babies do not present with symptoms immediately, I presume, rightly or wrongly, that many children are misdiagnosed later because there are no data to tie into the syndrome. That is very sad as well.

My next question concerns cocaine use. Cocaine is a recreational drug that is used across all classes of society. Is it difficult to collect data on that?