Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 3 October 2024
Committee on Drugs Use
A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed)
9:30 am
Ms Paula Kearney:
I agree with Mr. Mullins about the importance of having stability. For example, in the job I was working in before I came back to Saol, a woman came in to me for support around applying for housing. She had been going through issues with addiction, etc., and had given her children up for voluntary care. At the time, she was in a two-bedroom apartment. With the trauma of her children being taken into care, etc., she ended up slipping back into addiction. There was a raid on her home. She lost her home and she ended up in homeless accommodation. I refer to the criteria for her to even get her children back, even though she was doing well in her recovery. I will state I do not look at recovery as someone going through detox. Recovery is people making a change, making positive changes in their lives, whether they are on methadone for the rest of their lives or on Buvidal, Suboxone or any of the other treatments there are now. Recovery is making those positive changes. This woman was doing all that. She was still on treatment but that was her recovery. She was attending services and doing everything she could but what was stopping her from getting her children back was the fact that, because she was in a hostel, she no longer fitted the criteria for the three-bedroom house she needed to get her children back. That stable accommodation piece is really important. When we look at expecting people to jump through hoops, we need to start looking at the barriers the State is putting there through its policies.
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