Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We fundamentally disagree that people should have to pay for healthcare such as addiction services. I met with many groups recently who engage in addiction services and one issue keeps cropping up time and again. People are being forced to pay out of pocket for assessment for rehabilitation and detoxification services. In fact, there are five facilities in the State that charge people seeking assessments €90 100% of the time.

We have already had the issue raised that the time between assessments and treatment is too long. In 2019, 224 people waited more than 181 days for assessment for treatment. We need to stop putting barriers in place for people who need treatment. Financial barriers and long waiting times are damaging people's chances of recovery. We need real public access to treatment to ensure that when someone has put in the hard work and is stable enough for treatment, access to it is not being blocked. People looking to go into recovery should be supported by this State. They should not have to struggle to find the money to get an assessment. That is wrong and it is a problem we should work on together to fix.

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