Mr. Jim Doherty:

I think it is immediacy bias; I really do. The refugee programme, particularly since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has become such a big thing. People tend to focus on the newest problem without realising the older problems are still there and are, in fact, going to interact with the new problems to make both worse. There is some element of that.

I hate to say it, but we often hear this phrase, and people say this to me a lot, that the drugs issue is not sexy anymore politically. It does not have immediacy and "now" currency. I hate to think that Government policy could be dictated by such things, and I do not believe it is because there are far too many thoughtful analytical people involved.

If, however, we look at the trajectory of our location within the Department of the Taoiseach to where we are now and the trajectory of funding and interaction from the other Departments, it is difficult to draw alternative conclusions. That is why I really welcome the Citizens' Assembly because it is seemed to refresh our idea that this needs to be a national conversation.

The Chairman is absolutely right in everything he said about fast gas, but we have to prioritise our approach in every area. For instance, we still have conversations about whether Naloxone is available. Someone else mentioned drug-related deaths earlier. Naloxone is one way - it is not going to solve all drug-related deaths - we can tackle and reduce some drug-related deaths. Yet, it is not yet freely, totally available in a very clear and totally accessible way to families, drug users, service users or service providers. It is available through restricted access to certain classes of people.

We need to just push past the barriers on things like that, but that is about getting the urgency back into the conversation. Drug-related deaths are an extremely good place to start because our rate of drug-related deaths is really high. It should be given the kind of primacy we once gave when our rate of road deaths was really high. It was actually about the same as what our rate of drug deaths is now. It became a national conversation and we did make great strides in road safety. Therefore, we need to have that conversation.