Professor Aiden McCormick:

The Deputy is right. Ireland is pretty good in terms of opiate substitution therapy, OST, and recent data from across Europe suggest that some 54% of people with active opiate use in Ireland are undergoing OST, which is higher than in most European countries. However, it is very difficult to target the people who are not in opiate substitution, not in hostels and not in prison, and we are trying to target those three areas. Outside of those areas it is very difficult. One could go on the soup run with the Simon Community as a possibility but it is difficult if people are not somehow linked in with therapy. The advantage of opiate substitution is that people will come for their methadone but, if they are chaotic and will not do that, how are we going to treat them with antiviral therapy for eight weeks or 12 weeks? It is very expensive medication and if they take it for a few days and then stop it for a week, there will be resistance and we will not be able to treat them subsequently. The Deputy is right. It is very difficult to see how we are going to get to this very hard-to-reach community when we do not have a good idea of it.