Ms Michele Tait:

The hepatitis strategy was written some time before the national hepatitis C treatment programme was established and in a period when the availability of, and access to, treatment was poor in Ireland. The development of medications to treat hepatitis C has only happened in the past few years. We did not have access to these treatments at the time the strategy was written. The recommendations, which are in the process of being implemented, are in areas across the entire addiction services, such as in education and prevention, and they have to be implemented in tandem with providing the treatment. The work is ongoing and the full implementation of all the recommendations is a work in progress.