Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At least the Deputy's depression is not affecting his tongue. I am sorry that I have been in and out of this meeting but I had other things on this morning. I know the witnesses were looking for a pharmacist and I might send in my CV. A number of us very much supported the injection centres. I worked in drug addition in the midlands 12 years ago. I see the need for a bespoke, tailored approach to deal with people who have addiction issues. As Deputy Durkan said, this all starts in a person's home and the circumstances in which he or she is brought up. One of my big concerns is the effect of living in hotel rooms on small children. This would be grand if they were there for three or six months. If they were four years of age, they might think they were on holidays, although I know that being in a hotel room with children for more than 24 hours proves it is a very restricted environment. There is an idea that children do not know. Children know well what is happening. They are fully aware that their classmate is living in a house with a door while they are in a hotel and this is because mammy, daddy or whoever has fallen on hard circumstances. I am not a psychologist, but I can imagine that has a detrimental effect on their psyche and how they see society and their aspirations for their own lives.

It should not be like a school report card where if someone makes the right choices in life, there is a prize at the end. People can make the wrong choice that leads them down the wrong path of alcohol abuse or violence in the home or another form of abuse, but then sometimes these things are thrown up at people. As Deputy Durkan pointed it out, it could be that the wrong lad moved in next door or someone just happened to kick a ball with the wrong lad in the park. One cannot control who one's children are friendly with when they are six or seven years of age. It is not always bad choices. It is not about punishments. It is necessary to provide bespoke supports for each individual case. There is not a one-size fits all model here.

We need to move away from the idea of drug dependence and it being a bad thing. It is a health issue. We need to educate children about what happens if one goes down this route and to try to tackle it before it gets out of hand. I cannot imagine what it would be like for children and teenagers living in substandard accommodation and growing up in that environment. Whatever it would be like in a hotel room with a four year old or a six year old, I cannot imagine what it would be like with a 12 year old nor can I imagine what it would be like to explain it to a 12 year old or for the parent to stop this 12 year old hating him or her, even though the situation is probably not his or her fault.

I commend the Simon Communities on their work. The witnesses will see many of us are on the same page. I recognise it is not as simple as putting everyone on a bus and sending them to a ghost estate, doing it up for them and giving them a bus pass to get to wherever. Removing people from Dublin city and putting them in towns outside the city where they have to travel to the city for their drug treatment is totally unacceptable. One cannot have that as it does not work. I know from my role as a community pharmacist, there is no quantitative value that can be put on the connection between a community pharmacist and the person suffering from addition. In my husband's case, if someone does not turn up for their methadone, he drives to their house that evening on the way home to see that they are alive. Pharmacists do not go on about this but we make the call, we go down and check to see the children are all right, did the individual get their methadone. One cannot replicate that on a mass basis. It is good value. I have spoken about this before. I think it is one-eighth of the cost to provide methadone services in the community within the group setting. It does not have to be a pharmacist, it can be a GP, but that connection between people suffering in these ways and a health care professional who understands them and respects them as a human being, who understands that this is something that has just happened in their lives and tries to support them and their families to get out of it. It has to be very targeted towards the individual. If one looks at the economics of it, and one wanted to be so cold as to look at it as a money saving exercise, the State will get its money back in spades and will end up with a better society. I thank the witnesses for their work.