Results 681-700 of 1,102,751 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Brendan Griffin OR speaker:James Lawless OR speaker:Claire Kerrane OR speaker:Michael Healy-Rae OR speaker:Micheál Martin OR speaker:Frank Feighan OR speaker:Michael McGrath OR speaker:Mark Ward OR speaker:Alan Dillon OR speaker:Michael Ring OR speaker:Norma Foley OR speaker:Joan Collins OR speaker:Mick Barry OR speaker:Martin Browne OR speaker:Brendan Howlin OR speaker:Steven Matthews OR speaker:Emer Higgins OR speaker:John Brady OR speaker:Mattie McGrath OR speaker:Chris Andrews OR speaker:Darragh O'Brien OR speaker:Fergus O'Dowd OR speaker:John Lahart OR speaker:Chris Andrews7 OR speaker:Rose Conway-Walsh OR speaker:Neasa Hourigan OR speaker:Seán Ó Fearghaíl)

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: That would take care of all of our new cohort. There are hundreds of thousands of people working in services that are central or tangential to our health service. How do we hit all of them? Do we need to get everybody into a continuing professional development course on addiction and trauma-like care?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: How far along are we on that journey?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: Working in an emergency department is different from working in a laboratory.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: I will return to the question of the inspection of services. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Health, where we talk a lot about the inspection side of things in the context of oversight, performance indicators and outcomes. Who would do that? Perhaps that is not fair. What kind of a body could the witnesses imagine undertaking that piece of work?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: Could Dr. Kelly give me an idea of the breadth and level of that service? Would it include all the third-party and NGO services?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: Would it influence how drug task forces work?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: It is crazy.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: By proxy, there would be a benchmark that you could fall below and therefore-----

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: I will not say what popped into my head. Just taking the piss.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: Not once or twice weekly, however. There is no benefit there.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: That was my experience. At some stage it was once weekly and if a doctor had concerns it was twice weekly. It was being used punitively.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: I have a question about data which struck me when talking about the prisons. I was reading something about it. Do we have the data about how many persons are eligible for OST or who would be appropriate for OST? Not somebody who has tried a drug once, but somebody who would benefit from OST. How many are actually in treatment? One statistic I read stated 35% of people who should be in...

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: Yes, of course. To be honest, my question was not just what the number is but whether we are recording the data. When I ask a question about health, I am often told it is not recorded. As a result, I was wondering whether we have a sense of the data.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: Why is that?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: I thank our witnesses for their opening statements. It was very interesting to listen to them. I am from Clondalkin and over the past few years, we have been lucky enough to have some very progressive community gardaí, particularly with regard to people in the throes of addiction. They see these people as people and not as a burden on society. Once that relationship changed, we could...

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: That daily interaction with people, when done humanely, trickles back into the community, families and the organisations the people may be engaged with. Community policing, especially at that level, really works.

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: Are conversations taking place with members of the force in relation to potential changes in drug policy? For example, if we move from decriminalising the person but not the drug, how would that affect gardaí on a daily basis? What are their thoughts on that?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Mark Ward: I am sorry to cut across Mr. Kelly. He referred to the organisational change the Garda has to make and there could be more organisational change if some of the recommendations are carried into legislation. Does the Garda get support on that? Does it get resources to implement that change or it is doing that out of existing resources?

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: I welcome the witnesses. I congratulate Mr. Kelly on his new appointment. We might stick with that matter for a moment. I often ask a question about data and not just data but its relevance. As somebody knocking on doors at the moment, I do not disagree that people feel we need another 1,000 officers or so. I imagine we also need ICT resources. It is not just about data, which is a...

Committee on Drugs Use: A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Oct 2024)

Neasa Hourigan: Mr. Kelly is describing highly specialised work. I imagine for practical reasons that much of that is centralised. What is the experience of the average garda dealing with it on the street? How does that work? Do they feed into those systems?