Dr. Richard Healy:

Reintegration would speak to that. We published a report a while ago, entitled “Lives on Hold”. Simultaneously, ICON published a report, entitled “Trapped in Treatment”. These titles were not deliberately linked, but they spoke to what was happening. I will speak to methadone services. Access to methadone is much better than it was a couple of years ago when there were waiting lists of months or years, but of 12,000 people, few are making the transition into the workplace or education. As part of its decriminalisation model, Portugal is incentivising employers to employ people with addiction issues. This will go a long way towards changing culture and making treatment more acceptable, in that someone will not have a stigma attached to him or her when trying to enter the labour market or education. Incentives along those lines would go a long way towards helping reintegration. We are discussing long-term issues – culture will not be changed in a single budget – but there are steps we can take to get it started. That would be a good thing. There should be a greater emphasis on reintegration instead of keeping people in long-term care. I have cited the statistics. There are people who have been on methadone for 26 or 30 years. It is not a problem if that is what they want to do, but with Ireland’s current services, there is nothing else they can do. If people are on methadone, it is difficult to get educated or enter the labour market, as they must give urine samples three to four times per week and collect their methadone three to four times per week or even every day. They cannot be seen in the workplace or education. Therefore, we have this stigmatisation and almost discrimination of methadone users.