Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I like to sit to back and listen, for a change. It is nice, because this conversation had to be had. By putting their own thoughts on record, the witnesses have made a difference. It is ironic we have two groups, one looking after the individual who is suffering and the other looking after the knock-on effects.

I boxed off four issues. The witnesses are all in agreement that addiction is a health issue, whereas we have normalised it as a criminal activity. There is nothing worse than being in addiction. I say this because those people who are in it have no control. Without help they will never move forward. There are also the pushers on the other side who are digging the hole for those people and throwing them into it.

I loved the line, which is true, about being experts in experience, as in nobody sells experience and you cannot buy it. I know where the families are coming from when it comes to passion because they have lived those life experiences. They spoke about helping people, which brings me onto my final point, where again we were all in agreement, that the trick here is education. It is getting it to the people outside. We have all come across it in our own daily lives, never mind in our political lives, where people find it extremely difficult to access services and information. This is no poke on the HSE, but everybody has been in agreement that the accident and emergency departments are not the place for this. I was very surprised when Ms Sloan said that the police in the Six Counties got training, but we do not get training down here.