Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation this morning. I thank them for coming along and thank them for the important work that they do in providing a important linkage between Government the people who are affected by addictions.

We all have in our respective constituencies various rehabilitation centres, etc. It is important at this stage to recognise that we are coming from a long way back. We have a lot of ground to cover and this is accentuated to a huge extent by virtue of the population increase in the country, increased demand in the country and increased addictions of all sorts.

I was a member of one of these ministerial task forces a long time ago. It was useful but even though we had been active for a couple of years, we had not got to the stage where we had found the ultimate answer. We still have not the ultimate answer, that is, the strengthening of the link to bring to the centre of Government the necessities and acute demand on the ground and how best to make it happen.

To my mind, two things need to happen. We have to deal with on the treatment level, including methadone treatment, and set up as many treatment centres as possible with the clear intention of reducing dependence on whatever the addiction is. Otherwise, we are not making a gain at all.

There is a debate that I have had previously with some of the treatment centres that it goes on forever.

We need to show some degree of progress. We need to be able to tell patients, for a start, that we are winning the war and they are less dependent than they were or that they do not depend to the extent that they did. That is progress.

We must also deal with supply. The rate of supply is appalling at the moment. It affects all schools, for instance, at primary and secondary level throughout the country. It affects children in a big way. What is happening is that the drug warlords are creating a dependency in advance of their market so they have a steady and guaranteed market based on the misery they create among people who are very often vulnerable. I note the points that have been made about the establishment of new structures and so on. How quickly do the witnesses anticipate the need to set up? What are the primary needs now? What is the most important thing that could be done now to deal with the problem in a meaningful way that is likely to have an effect without having to wait for three, four or five years to see the result?