Mr. Joe Slattery:

Another thing to consider is the lack of training in all aspects of the addiction field. Social workers do very little on addiction during their training. Doctors do very little. Members of the Garda do none. I am lucky enough to be part of the DRIVE, drug related intimidation and violence engagement, oversight committee for drug intimidation and part of the implementation of that is that gardaí will be trained in Templemore on drug debt intimidation. That is part of one of our suggestions. There was no training done on trauma, or understanding addiction so to this day, everyone is still treated as a criminal. Then we have unique people with unique empathy who will do it differently but as far as the system goes, people are still treated as criminals. That is due to a lack of understanding and education. That needs to be resolved if we want to get people to come to our door instead of being shamed and not coming back. Part of this is that the system is wrong.