Dr. Eamon Keenan:

Like all services across the HSE, the Covid-19 pandemic has been extremely challenging to manage. We were very grateful to be identified as an essential service early on and that allowed us to target those people who were on waiting lists for opioid substitution treatment and engage them in treatment and we have been very successful in that regard.

I take the Deputy's point on the residential services which have had to scale back because of public health requirements. However, let us not miss the point that staff also have been affected by the Covid pandemic, whether that means being moved to deliver front-line services or having to isolate themselves. It has been a very challenging time.