Dr. Denis O'Driscoll:

From my experience when I was in the addiction services, we certainly offered benzodiazepine detoxes within the confines of our addiction treatment services. They were always patient-driven because that is the only way it will work. It is pointless me dropping somebody automatically. As regards detoxes within the community, there was a project on the northside of the city which was very much based around community GPs and the patients themselves with local pharmacies to look at how benzo detox could and should work.

The challenge around benzodiazepine detox is people always ask how long. My opinion on a detox is it is as long as a person needs it for, but the whole rationale for it is that within our addiction services, we could change things more regularly. That means I could ring Dr. Crowley up and say the Leas-Chathaoirleach is not ready to drop down a dose and we need to keep her on this particular dose, so we would keep her at that. Out in the community there is a whole scope, including needing prescriptions, interventions and regular interventions. It is just a more difficult situation out in the community. I concur with the Leas-Chathaoirleach. In 2000, I think, the benzodiazepine subcommittee was set up, so it has indeed been that long. We have talked about it since that.