Ms Siobhán McArdle:

As the Minister of State said, it is important we evaluate what we have learned from the implementation of the national drugs strategy, which is now about to conclude and then take the inputs and learning from those who contributed in such a great way to the citizens' assembly. We have a greater level of evidence, including data, information as well as personal and staff experience, which will inform what goes into and what continues to be part of the next strategy. What we will see in the new strategy will be a refresh and reframing, rather than saying that the strategy we have is not working.

We need to continue to focus on prevention and early intervention, ensuring we have access to services, as the Minister of State said, and understanding across the health regions how, with the new integrated areas, we can ensure people in those regions have accessible services that talk to one another, including addiction services, mental health services, community services and GPs. We must ensure they are all joined up and people understand what is available in that ecosystem of health services and community and voluntary services. What we have seen in Sláintecare as we have implemented it is the importance of evidence to good outcomes, understanding what is working and ensuring we have better data to understand more about the reasons people come forward and the factors that are having an impact on their lives. We are beginning to do more about the social determinants of health, as the Minister of State said. There is quite a focus under the broad strategy.