Ms Marian Sloan:

As legislators, it is incumbent on committee members to examine the drugs strategies and actually cost them. When the Government establishes the priorities for the year, they should make sure they are actually costed out. The strategy we have currently is wonderful. It is very innovative but they do not cost it out. It is the same with alcohol moving in under the drugs rubric. That is important and where substances should all be. There is nowhere where they have costed additional funding for family support services yet under this new drugs strategy they are charging families as being the main gateway to people's recovery. They are the leading source of support identified in the strategy. That should be costed out. The Government has dangled the carrot in front of families and pulled it away again. They thought that for the first time they were recognised as service users in their own right. Without funding for those priorities and recommendations, they are just that. They are on paper and look good but they are not effective.

It is also really important to see that we have a drugs strategy, an implementation committee and the coalface workers. There has to be a massive educational piece with middle management around how they look at implementing that strategy. There should be a national directive about how it is to be implemented and that it cannot just be in one area. It is nearly an Eircode postcode lottery here for services.