Dr. Bernard Kenny:

A funding model is in place whereby GPs are resourced to provide the opioid agonist therapy programme. That is an agreement with the HSE that works very well. A total of 350 members are actively prescribing opioid agonist therapy. Part of our role in the college would be to see that expanded and that is what we would like. That is beneficial to the community. As part of that training, we do address other addictions so it is not purely opioid. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent programme from the HSE with regard to funding other substances so it relates purely to opioid agonist therapy. As I mentioned before, we recognise that addiction is a chronic disease in many cases with relapsing so it would be a suitable programme to expand into other substances like cocaine, cannabis use disorder, etc.