Dr. Jo-Hanna Ivers:

To clarify, prior to academia I worked in front-line services for seven years and all my research is translational so I deal with communities a lot, but I feel like a bit of a fraud calling myself a practitioner today.

The programme represented other community-based services that deal with young people around building up supports for intimidation. I acknowledge what the Deputy said about the notion that every community is under pressure to scrap for services and trying to fight to fill this comprehensive response to address people's drug use; in other words, trying to find houses for people in the middle of a housing crisis, trying to get them into education when our numbers have never been higher or trying to get them a job in a market that calls for so much skill. The pressure we are putting our health system and communities under has to stop. The Deputy is right that poverty is the driver of addiction. We have acknowledged that as far back as the Rabbitte report, which was really good, but our solution is focused on treatment. If people are addicted because they are in poverty and we treat the addiction, we are doing nothing about the poverty. Ultimately it is about building up community supports, putting resources back in communities and driving such things as Mr. Reid mentioned, where we have people with lived experience at the centre of our services.

The other Deputy spoke about the notion of a whole-of-government approach. Yes, we need that but at the moment we have co-ordination from our cross-sectoral partners. We need absolute buy-in and for those other agencies and sectors to strategise around recovery and prevention in a way they would if we were talking about economic recovery. That is the whole-of-government approach we really need. Until we do that, we will still have communities like the Deputy's and mine - I am from the north inner city - on their knees, struggling, pushing back, fighting and scrapping for resources. Ultimately it is about building up those supports and addressing the underlying issues like drug intimidation.