Dr. Niall Muldoon:

With regard to restraints relating to children, when we do these sort of consultations, we take what the children say to us without any judgment, request or follow up. We then say that this is what we understand they have told us and check whether they are happy with how we are presenting it. In this case, we just took what they said, which was that there were a number of situations in which young people were physically restrained in order to administer an injection. They felt it was done in an inappropriate way, they could do without that happening and there would be other ways it should happen. They knew they were upset and needed help but they felt there were better ways of doing that.

From our experience with this case, consultation and presentation, nobody had any drug-related issues so I cannot really comment on that. The committee has discussed the difficulty surrounding dual diagnosis. That is another issue where a child with a drug addiction or any sort of addiction finds it difficult to access a mental health service. I would be very much aware of that but not in this particular report.