Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues for supporting me and for all their contributions. They are vital. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton. This is my first engagement with her as the Minister of State with responsibility for drugs. I wish her the very best in her new role because it is an important one. It is something we need to do better on as a society. I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for being here. In fairness to her, through all my time here - three years at this stage - she has never ducked a debate. This is probably one of the more collegial debates we have had so far because a lot of this is being done in good faith. We are willing to work with the Government in constructive Opposition, as I said from the start.

I got a response to a parliamentary question this week about the model of care the Minister of State mentioned. According to the response I got off the HSE, the draft model of care for dual diagnosis was approved by the HSE's chief clinical officer on 7 April 2022 and was sent to the College of Psychiatrists on 13 April 2022 for approval by the clinical advisory group. It goes on to say that the HSE is waiting for a response from the College of Psychiatrists. The College of Psychiatrists, according to the response I got, has had this report for the last ten months and has not responded. There does not seem to be urgency about this. Can the Minister of State make it a priority that the College of Psychiatrists responds and make sure there are no more delays?

See this speech in context