Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will go briefly through the sequence of this matter if the Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, does not mind. On 20 August my colleague, an Teachta Gould, wrote to the Minister of State seeking information and an update on the status of drug and alcohol support group meetings. I do not think anyone will dispute how important they are. We know they are. On 26 August an Teachta Gould received a reply. In the intervening time he had to write to both the Minister for Health and the Taoiseach directly because no reply had been forthcoming from the Minister of State's office. The Minister of State advised at that stage that it may not be the time to introduce exceptions to the public health advice. On 3 September a Fianna Fáil backbencher made a video announcing that the meetings would be restarted and put it up on social media, but on 4 September, curiously, National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, issued its advice. That was a day later, so there is obviously some class of communication with the backbenches of Fianna Fáil that is not going directly into the Minister of State's office. I am sure he will wish to investigate that. On 8 September we got the official announcement, and now we hear that these vital meetings have been stopped from 19 September.

The people who go to these meetings do so because they need support. The meetings are the very definition of an essential service. These people rely wholeheartedly on this service. I will read to the Minister of State some quotes. We in Sinn Féin, an Teachta Gould in particular, have received a lot of correspondence from people. I will anonymise it, obviously:

I was in shock and very angry as we had only started the meetings back up in July and now they are shut down again. In the meetings everyone wears masks, adheres to all the safety regulations. Before I started AA I was suicidal, and the people and programme in AA saved my life.

This is another quote:

The problem is most people only know an alcoholic in active addiction. The alcoholic in recovery is a completely different person. However, we are all tarred with the one brush. This we can understand because at one time all of us in recovery were also in active addiction. It is no exaggeration to say our continued recovery depends on meetings.

Here is a final quote:

I am a recovering alcoholic and I go to meetings to stay sober. When the meetings stopped it was a huge struggle. Unfortunately, some people drank and some will never make it back to meetings.

This is very high-stakes, very important stuff and a really serious peer-to-peer support of the very best kind.

As the Minister of State can see from the testaments, this is the type of support that keeps people out of active addiction and in recovery. It can keep them going and save their lives. That is what they said. These meetings have saved lives. If that does not qualify as an essential service, I am at a loss to know what does.

It is not lost on me or on anyone listening to this debate that bookmakers and off-licenses are open and yet these vital addiction and recovery support meetings have been forcibly closed. I urge the Minister of State to rethink this and to engage with the groups which organise these meetings and to proactively find a way to ensure the meetings can take place safely. They are a lifeline. We know there will be rolling restrictions and that this is an issue that will be faced not only by Dublin but by other counties as we try to get ahead of this virus. The Minister of State is compounding the issue these people have in terms of dealing with their recovery and their addiction and moving on with their lives. I urge the Minister of State to rethink the suspension of these vital meetings.

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