Ms Paula Kearney:

I was in Porto this year and visited the consultant rooms there. It highlighted a point about the female-specific piece. We heard a presentation about the service there and found that 85% of the service users were male and only 15% female. When I asked why that is, they said it had been much higher but when it came to core funding, the hour they had provided for female-only was gone.

With regard to decriminalisation, we need to look at the broader picture. In Portugal, the quantity is ten days’ worth of drugs for personal use, but ten days’ worth of use for me might be one day’s worth for you, so we need to look at that. Decriminalisation should be a first step and it should be taken quickly but I think we need to look further. Decriminalisation will not stop people from overdosing because the drugs people are using are still being given in an unregulated supply that is killing people. That is my view.