Mr. Phil Thompson:

Deputy Ó Broin asked if we get State funding. Approximately one third of our operational budget for the residential work at Tiglin comes mainly through two drug task forces. In recent years we have established links with the Department of Social Protection and have brought in community employment in two forms, in one of which we run a day service programme. I will come back to that because the Deputy mentioned other ways to help people as they exit treatment. The other arm of the community employment is in the residential component.

We are here to talk about homelessness, but that is tied into addiction in other ways. Mr. McCann referred to a guy coming in who had educational difficulties. Education and health are taken care of within the residential facility at Tiglin. Community employment has been a great way to upskill people, give them back confidence and help them to exit treatment with some form of a CV. We have also partnered with Carlow IT, which has brought an education element into our programme. People can leave Tiglin now with a level 6 qualification. It is a wraparound approach. Mr. McCann spoke of a two year wraparound service. The journey or rehabilitation starts the moment a person asks for help. That can start well outside the bounds of a residential treatment programme. It can start within the chaos of addiction while on the streets, and those people need detoxification or other healthcare issues sorted out prior to entry into programmes such as those at Tiglin. The step down into transitional accommodation afterwards is equally important. We noticed that sometimes when people leave after their treatment and their education they may not be successful in securing employment or other accommodation. That is why we established a day programme - so that a certain type of individual who needed that extra bit of support would have somewhere to go during the day. Continuing educational supports and other housing options could be introduced at that point. The community employment scheme linked them with other employment options. That is the whole wraparound approach to the journey from the streets back to aftercare, and it takes time.