Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To turn to the Estimates, there are two areas in particular on which I want to focus, namely, inclusion health and the palliative care section in terms of the budgets. In terms of inclusion health, I refer to the issue of drug misuse and the number of referrals for addiction services. It is welcome that we are meeting our targets. The target last year in terms of the percentage of substance misusers under the age of 18 for whom treatment has commenced within one week following an assessment was at 99%, which is effectively everyone. My concern is about the waiting times to be assessed. There are two different issues in that regard. Once somebody gets assessed, he or she is getting the treatment within a very short time. We are meeting all of our targets in that regard. I do not see any information, and the Minister might be able to provide it by way of a note to the committee later if he does not have it now, on the number of people seeking assessments and the period of time they are waiting.

I have a particular concern based on my personal knowledge of individuals, particularly around opiate addictions, for instance, heroin. We are meeting the targets from the time someone is assessed to when treatment starts, which I understand is four days. That is the target for next year. The target was five days last year and we did it in four, so we have a new target for this year. My concern is the waiting times to be assessed, especially with regard to heroin use. I am sure the Minister is well aware that if somebody is addicted to an opiate such as heroin and for whatever reason that person has an awakening on a particular day that he or she wants to kick the habit, that person cannot wait around three or four weeks for an assessment because within three or four days the chances are that person is no longer in that frame of mind and the opportunity is lost. Will the Minister give us some indication of what we are doing to try to improve the waiting times to be assessed rather than the waiting times from assessment into treatment, which are excellent?