Dr. Eamon Keenan:

The number of people in this country identified as opioid-dependent in our last prevalence figures is just under 20,000. We have about 11,500 of those people on opioid substitution or opioid agonist treatment, which stacks up well against other European countries. We have a good penetration into the cohort of people using opioids.

I do not have an exact figure for the number of people among those 11,385 who are on detoxification. It is important to note methadone treatment is a means of stabilising somebody's lifestyle. People come into the service in a chaotic manner.

They may have been injecting drugs for a period of time. They may have had family or personal difficulties. They may have viral illnesses, such as hepatitis C or HIV. All of those issues need to be addressed and supported for the individual. The addiction services attempt to do all of this. Part of our remit is to test people for viruses and to get them engaged in treatment. One of our big successes recently has been the establishment of treatment services for hepatitis C right across the addiction services. People need to access treatment.

Moving on is not an easy matter for individuals because sometimes the facilities within the overall structures are not there. While someone can be detoxified off methadone or buprenorphine, they may not have a job, an educational opportunity or a family support, the supports that are wrapped around within the community.

That comes to the Deputy's second point in relation to recovery. Recovery is a whole-of-society approach to the issue of substance use, so that people who wish to come off methadone or buprenorphine have the means whereby they can sustain a drug-free lifestyle. It can be very soul destroying for an individual if they are rushed off a methadone programme or they detoxify too early and relapse. Sometimes, it takes them a while to engage in treatment again because they may feel stigmatised or ashamed that they have not been successful. One example I gave was that a number of years ago we had a pharmacy strike. We had to open our services to people who were engaged in community-based pharmacy programmes. We saw that there was a huge number of people getting on with their lives and holding down jobs who were coming in to our clinics that were open later at night on their way home from work. People can stabilise on methadone, get on with their lives and do jobs to support their families. To view methadone as a bad thing is not a-----