Ms Anna Quigley:

I will quickly respond to Deputy Hourigan's question. She hit on something crucial around the role of the community drug projects. As we know, the HSE has a statutory obligation to provide treatment services. If I were to go in for my treatment and had an issue with my children, that is not the HSE's role so it cannot deal with that. It would have to pass me to somebody else. The whole idea of the community drug projects is that they are able to deliver that integrated approach.

If I were to walk into my community drug project, I might not be able to think about my drug use because I am about to be evicted, or there is an issue around my children, or I am being intimidated. The community drug projects can respond to whatever the issues are. That is their core. They were set up to be the place where that integrated approach is delivered. The statutory agencies have their statutory obligations and it is essential that they deliver them. What is unique about the community drug projects is that they can respond to all those needs. Clearly, the childcare service is an essential dimension of the SAOL Project because when one is working with women, that need will arise.

It is crucial that we get what the community drug projects are about. It is about being able to address the needs, at whatever level they present, of people and that is the kind of flexibility they have which the statutory agents cannot bring to it. That is where the partnership is so important. The statutory agencies are needed when those more specialist services are required. We need the integrated approach when a person comes in to a service. It has to deal with whatever the key issue on the table is for them and try to work with him or her on that. That is a crucial element to the model. We have it but we need to support it an awful lot more than we do at present. It comes back to what Ms Hill said about success. We know it can work. It is part of the heartbreak when one knows how many more people could be helped and how much more success we could have if the support was there.