Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton. I appreciate that the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, is obliged to attend a meeting of the health committee. Perhaps the Minister of State would convey to her the seriousness of the situation. I accept that she is aware of it, but perhaps a meeting with the senior team in Granby Row would be of benefit simply to have a first-hand conversation on the pressures the team is under and the solutions it is offering.

I met with the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, after she was appointed and I suggested a number of places that she should visit. She has done that. I am particularly impressed by the compassion she has brought to this brief. Statistics on a page are one thing but the problem with this issue is that those who are afflicted with addiction, particularly heroin addiction, are constantly undermined in the public perception because of their portrayal in the media. When one meets somebody who is getting her life together and who symbolises in one's mind how the system can work and then one hears less than a year later that the person has succumbed to her addiction and one tries to square that with the reality of her life travelling from Portlaoise to Dublin every day, one must only come to the conclusion that the reason this continues is that, at some level, public policy demands that this person be ashamed of the reasons they are ill. There is an element of victim blaming in that regard. I realise the Minister is trying to change this and that she feels passionately about it, but perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, would convey to her an invitation to meet with the senior team in Granby Row. It would be an attempt to understand better the realities that people are dealing with on the front line.

The issue of the cap was not mentioned in the Minister's response. The statistics that were outlined would suggest that things are getting better. Regardless of whether that is true, people are being told it could take two years to get onto a methadone maintenance programme. I believe that is being said to give people the impression that this will not happen overnight, but two years is an awfully long time. Six months is also a long time. For some people the prospect of waiting six months is too long. We are losing people in that gap. I ask the Minister to convey to the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, the invitation to meet the senior management team in the clinic. Perhaps we can then move to a situation where fewer lives are being lost unnecessarily.