Mr. Fergal Black:

Drugs are a significant problem in prisons. Prisons are always a microcosm of society. We engage with people in prisons to deal with the situation we encounter. All prisoners who are on committal will see a nurse or doctor within 24 hours. Where people who have addiction issues give a history of opiate use and test positive for opiates and where they have been maintained on methadone treatments in the community, we will continue that treatment while they remain in custody. There are currently just under 10,000 people on methadone treatments in the community. Additionally, we have a contract with Merchants Quay Ireland to provide addiction counselling in 12 of our 13 institutions. We have addiction pharmacists in Mountjoy and other facilities, and we have general practitioners, GPs, with a special interest in substance misuse.

In summary, we provide a range of services for people addicted to drugs within the prison system. While the numbers on methadone in the community have continued to rise in the last few years, we have seen a significant reduction in prisons. There were 750 people on methadone maintenance across the prison system when I came to the Prison Service in 2008. There are 465 today. There has been a change in that, notwithstanding the reduction in numbers.

We regard prison as an ideal opportunity for somebody to address his or her addiction issues. We have a self-directed detox programme in the Mountjoy campus where people can reduce their methadone intake by 5 ml a week under the supervision of the doctor and pharmacist. We did research in the last two years, from June 2014 to December 2016. We had 530 patients involved in self-directed detox in Mountjoy. Some 120 have come off methadone completely and 88 are still off methadone as of last week. Some 197 reduced their methadone intake by a minimum of 20 ml.

We are concerned about other drugs, particularly new psychoactive substances, NPS. Deputies will be aware from looking at recent media footage of what is going on in English jails of the impact of NPS on violence and deaths in custody in English jails. We have not seen it to any significant extent here yet. We have seen some small episodes of it. We have brought over our colleagues from Public Health England and the National Health Service, NHS, to help us to try to ensure that we are prepared if NPS becomes a real problem in the way that it has in English and Scottish jails.