Dr. Jo-Hanna Ivers:

I will be very brief. This is an excellent of example of where we have a system that is supposed to co-operate or co-ordinate. We have Cork City Council that is supposed to be a partner in a care plan, but it decides whether it plays or not. Ultimately, if we shift towards that systemic model of building capital, we hold it responsible and suddenly the policies it makes that directly affect people in recovery need to be monitored, evaluated and pushed back at it.

Currently, the system we have is led by health. With the goodwill of our partners in housing and education, they may come to the table and do something for us. If we are serious about shifting and changing, we need those partners to row in with resources and policy that is going to directly affect the people that are in drug use, addiction and recovery and ultimately build that prevention.

I am going a little off script but I will be very quick. We often talk about prevention being this off the shelf package where we go into schools and tell kids not to use drugs. Prevention is no different from recovery. It is about investing in communities so that people are dissuaded and have other opportunities instead of buying into drug use or learning to cope with drugs and becoming addicted.