Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am watching the clock because I am due to speak in the House in a few minutes. I thank everyone for coming in. There is a wealth of experience on their side of the table. It is absolutely fantastic. I am really enjoying the discussion and getting a lot of information from the conversations that are going on.

I worked in community-based addiction services for years. I worked in outreach, drop-in services, with people like that girl Davina. I would like to think we treated people where they were at and not where we wanted them to be, but that was not always the case. I take the points about Davina’s experience on board 100%.

What Dr. Healy said brought me through my journey. When I first started working, it was in a community-based methadone service. I loved my time working in addiction services but I am thinking of one of the things I absolutely hated doing. One of my jobs was supervising people doing urine samples. It was very uncomfortable for me but it was very degrading for the person who had to produce the sample in front of me. Dr. Healy just brought me back to that. To me, it was sometimes a pointless exercise. I did not think there was a need for it. When we first moved with methadone from a detox-based programme to a maintenance programme, the problems started happening then. I am from a disadvantaged community. I have friends, people I grew up with, people I am still friends with and some people who are no longer here, who would have been put on methadone at the age of 13. Some of them are still on methadone, some are not and some are no longer here. It is different for different journeys. They often describe being on methadone as being in liquid handcuffs because you have to be at a certain place at a certain time. The goal was, which I always thought was a false goal, to go from having daily methadone and going to the clinic daily, to twice a week, to weekends and then the goal was to go to the doctor and get a prescription. That was seen to be the whole thing and I felt there was very little done about getting help for people who wanted to come off methadone and start over, because so many barriers had been put in place.

Dr. Healy mentioned that 12,000 people are currently on a methadone maintenance programme. I am not looking to simplify this because I know it is a complicated matter. In the time that we have, what one thing would Dr. Healy change which would help those 12,000 people if they wanted to make choices to move on in their recovery? What changes would he put in place?