Dr. Jo-Hanna Ivers:

I thank Deputy Shanahan for the opportunity. I will go back particularly to the point he spoke about earlier of where we are doing well. The current system in terms of treatment, and where the gains are, is we favour people at the moment who have less complex needs. They are the people who will be pushed through the system. These are people who do not have a co-occuring mental health issue, have a house to go to, have positive relationships, most likely have a job or have had employment that they can pull on from the past and have education either in small doses or the ability to go on to do that. They have what we refer to as capital in their arsenal. These are things that will help them sustain recovery. What is happening is that we look at our treatment data - and it is not what the people on the ground are doing because they are doing tremendous work - but we have a system that is stacked against people who have complex needs and we really need to bookend the supports in terms of recovery capital and build that systemic capital the Deputy alluded to earlier, particularly in this cross-Government approach. We know in this country that when we have political will we get things done. When we have political will we invest in people, communities and put a plan in place. We put a timeline in place and we make people responsible for that timeline. Ultimately, they are the ingredients for where we need to go. I know the Deputy has not asked me what I would do. However, regarding what we are doing well, we are doing well for people with less complex needs and if we are going to look at this in respect of a societal shift, we need to do better by people who are more vulnerable.