Mr. Aubrey McCarthy:

Between €300,000 and €400,000. Even at Christmas we had judges from the District Court bag-packing for us at Tesco in Naas. People know what we do, they appreciate it and they get behind it. We receive referrals from the State bodies, councils, probation services and others. Deputy Ó Broin spoke about funding. The east coast drugs task force funds five beds. At the moment we have eight to ten people from the east coast region. The south inner city local drugs task force supplies the funding for three staff members and for other outreach work. I am a voluntary chairman; I have a business in Deputy Durkan's area, and my job is to fundraise for Tiglin and push it. However, there is only so much that voluntary bodies can do, and I think I have gone around everybody's door with a begging bowl. They are sick of seeing me coming. That can only go on for so long. In order to see the likes of Niall and people like him getting their lives back on track, this was my idea for how the State can come on board without any further cost. The committee asked if we had put this proposal forward to the Department of Social Protection. We did, and I put it to a previous Minister of State, the former Deputy Alex White. I received correspondence in reply to my proposal which covered two elements: rent allowance and the GP methadone allowance. I was told, very politely, that the more people were coming off methadone or drugs in Tiglin, the more people the State had who were going on drugs, and therefore there was no real cost saving.