Ms Aoife Bairéad:

I suppose they are in a lot of parts of the country. That again speaks to why having local funding is important, because the profile of what people use and why they use it differs across different communities. It can also change remarkably quickly, often with what is available. Therefore, having a very flexible approach that tailors the services to the community and being able to adapt as they need to is very important. For example, over however many years I have been working, there are these surges of certain drugs, and they change very quickly.

We need services that can adapt to that. The fundamental difficulty with people who continue to use drugs or cannot stop using drugs and on whose lives that has significant problematic impacts is that there are other huge issues in their lives. It cannot solely be about focusing on one treatment or another. We have so many decades of research now that we know why people start using drugs, cannot stop using drugs and then return to drugs. Many people in many communities start using drugs. The other two are factored very much in deprivation, poverty and trauma. We also see the impact now of how, as was referred to earlier, gangs will tailor drug availability and drug use to bring in new people. That is absolutely true but if we do not have this co-ordinated approach to addressing it, those people will continue, as somebody said, to fall through the cracks or, as another person responded, to fall through the canyons. That is how it feels.

Returning to the point about the Department of the Taoiseach, and not in any way to disagree with it, while a health-led approach seems to be the best approach and is the one that is recommended by most experts in the area, and where it has worked in other countries, that seems to be why it works, I am concerned that if we take that approach, there has to be an acknowledgement or commitment from the heads of all Departments about responsibility. Maybe that needs to be in the Department of the Taoiseach. The Deputy would be much better able to decide how these political pieces work. As somebody on the ground, what I find difficult within that is why another Department would not hold that grave responsibility. Why does it have to be siloed? Why is it if it is your responsibility, it is not mine? That seems extraordinary to me, given what communities face. The idea that if one Department has it, nobody else needs to touch it is remarkable. I have been coming to this building for, I think, 15 years in various forums. It has been said in so many forums before that it may be about children, education, drugs or poverty. It has been repeatedly said that one Department-----