Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 392: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of drug treatment programmes in each prison in the State; the number of places available in each prison for each year for the past five years; the timeframe of each programme; the funding provided to each programme annually for the past five years and for 2009; the number of staff working on each programme in each prison for each year for the past five years and for 2009; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40049/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Irish Prison Service continues to work to implement its Drugs Policy & Strategy, entitled Keeping Drugs Out of Prisons, which was launched in May 2006. Working to fulfil the commitments contained in the Policy and Strategy involves the implementation of stringent measures to prevent drugs from getting into prisons while, at the same time, continuing to invest in services within prisons to reduce the demand for illicit drugs in the prisoner population as well as meeting prisoners' treatment and rehabilitative needs.

At present, any person entering prison giving a history of opiate use and testing positive for opioids on committal are offered a medically assisted symptomatic detoxification for operational reasons. Patients can, as part of the assessment process, discuss with healthcare staff other treatment options which may include stabilization on methadone maintenance for persons who wish to continue on maintenance while in prison and when they return to the community on release. Methadone maintenance is available in 8 of the 14 places of detention accounting for over 80% of the prison population. Details of the number of prisoners treated with drug related problems since 2003 is set out in the table below.

The Medical Unit in Mountjoy Prison has spaces specifically allocated for a dedicated drug detoxification programme. Each multidisciplinary programme has a duration of 6 weeks and the programme has a capacity of 9 prisoners at a time. The dedicated multidisciplinary drug detoxification programme in the Medical Unit in Mountjoy Prison involves both prison based staff and external agencies and is aimed at assisting prisoners who have indicated a desire to move from either a situation of current drug use or existing substitution programme to drug free status.

The most significant recent development has been the awarding of a contract for the provision of addiction counselling services for all prisons in the country to Merchants Quay Ireland. This contract is currently being rolled out, and all prisoners wherever they may be imprisoned will have access to addiction counselling services by the end of this year.

In the past the IPS has monitored its overall expenditure on healthcare and has not segregated spending on drug treatment. As most health care posts cover a range of healthcare interventions including drug treatment it is not possible to disaggregate the number of posts or funding specifically dedicated to drug treatment services.