Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir. I would be a long time name-checking everyone that is here. The witnesses have laid it out straightforwardly. Mr. Slattery and Mr. O'Hara have spoken about everybody knowing what to do here. The best practice is known but has not ever been implemented to any degree. Ms Harris made the point about where there is no service if you are talking about women in addiction. Ms Dunphy also spoke in relation to that.

We need to make sure there is a strategy, and a strategy means a plan. We all talk about multi-agency but we all know Departments do not talk to one another. When they do, it is sometimes only to say "That is not my responsibility."

A big welcome to Ms Barry and Ms McKenna. FASN operates out of Dundalk and does a huge amount of work. I have been at a number of fundraisers it has done and half the time the fundraisers are organised by guards. FASN still has Christy Mangan on its board. He is a former chief superintendent. That was on the basis that FASN provided a family support system which members of the Garda were not capable of providing but saw as being necessary. I ask representatives to detail the low cost of their operations and how they have constantly fallen between the Departments of health and justice. We all talk of the need for multi-annual funding and we have seen the corporatisation of how the State operates and who it engages with. While we all want to see best practice and governance, sometimes we lose the community dimension.

Most of the organisations represented here were built on the basis of need because the State was not meeting that need. The biggest point made was that a network was formed but what is really needed is for the State to provide a strategy for family addiction supports and, beyond that, to facilitate a network of those that are there. I ask the witnesses to make their own case.