Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 25 September 2025
Committee on Drugs Use
Family Supports: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. Andy O'Hara:
It is just worth adding what can happen. We need to be careful around peer work. Everyone wants to do peer work but if it is completely service-led and State-led we can get peers in, peers think they will go in to be the voice of their peers and represent them, but it can be structurally set against them. Then sometimes the peers end up just being the voice of the service or there to promote the service, which is a different role though it might be animportant role. We have to be very clear about what we are defining and what we are doing because we can not only be tokenistic but we can actually create more harm.