Dr. Richard Healy:

Our last research study was called Lives on Hold. We were getting some funding from the HSE but that stopped during Covid. We needed to access funding, so through the Community Action Network, CAN, we engaged with local drug task forces that provided some funding. We trained up other service uses who designed the survey with us as well as carrying it out and collecting the data. I wrote it up and then ran it by everybody. We had some meetings about whether they liked what we were doing. We launched that research in the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. It was a small launch with about 100 people there and about 30 service users who were involved. It was a real empowerment piece. It was really beautiful to be a part of and see service users standing there saying that this was what they wanted to hear, that this was what they have been saying and that this is their voice being heard by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. These were people who have never even been to these buildings and who do not feel like they belong. We were seeing them standing up and really feeling part of it. That empowerment piece is massive because not only are we empowering service users to be agents in their own social change, we are also producing credible, reputable and brilliant findings to inform policy. The unfortunate thing is that these findings, which SURIA has been repeatedly launching - five times, as I stated earlier - are not making it into the policy landscape. The funny thing about this is they are being used in other countries. The UK is using SURIA research findings to review its policy.