Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy said, the drug rehabilitation scheme plays an important role in helping recovering drug users to develop their personal and employment skills. As Minister, I have provided for a duration of up to three years. It is quite a long journey and one which can be very difficult for some people, so we have endeavoured to make it flexible. In addition to the three years, there is a provision for a further extension of the duration on a mainstream CE project. If it is to be extended beyond three years, we would look to see that there was a serious educational and developmental complement so that the person would achieve certification and qualification because that would be very important if the person was seeking work.

The other issue is to find follow on work experience for people. In my experience, people who have been involved in addiction situations or who have had an addiction problem for a long time very often lack recent work experience and that is a very big barrier to them even when they have been clean and have been in rehabilitation. If they do not have the work experience as well as the education it is quite difficult for them to get further employment.

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