HSE gets €900k to cut treatment waiting lists for addicts

THE Government is providing €900,000 to the HSE to cut chronic treatment waiting lists for heroin addicts in many parts of the country.

Drugs Strategy Minister John Curran said he hoped to make significant progress in reducing waiting lists by the end of the year.

He told an Oireachtas committee he was “fast tracking” five to six areas which had long waiting lists for methadone treatment.

The Department of Community Affairs, where Mr Curran is based, is allocating €900,000 to the HSE to provide the extra space needed at regional clinics to treat a greater number of people.

Earlier this month, the HSE said there were 545 people waiting to get on the methadone programme. This included 106 in the Cork area, where addicts are waiting 10 months on average for treatment.

The longest waiting lists is in the south-east (18 months), followed by the midlands (13 months). The extra spaces being created includes clinics at Cork,Waterford, Limerick, the midlands and the north-east.

The National Drugs Strategy 2001-2008 had set a target of addicts that were seeking treatment would begin it within one month. This was supposed to have been achieved by 2005.

Mr Curran told the Oireachtas Committee on Community Affairs that the drugs strategy (2009-2016) was agreed by the Cabinet in June, but would not be published until September.

Mr Curran said the strategy, as revealed in the Irish Examiner last May, was setting up a new structure, including an Office of the Minister for Drugs (OMD).

In response to concerns expressed by committee deputies Michael Ring (FG) and Michael Kennedy (FF), regarding the problem of people driving while under the influence of drugs, Mr Curran said this was a specific action under the new strategy. He told Labour deputy Mary Upton there was also a specific action to deal with the problem of drug dealers using children as couriers. Ms Upton said children as young as eight and 10 were being used as runners.

Labour’s Jack Wall said local social welfare offices were not able to deal with drug dealers claiming benefit and called for a “hit squad”.

Several deputies welcomed the inclusion of alcohol in the new strategy and called for a ban on alcohol advertising.

Fine Gael senator Jerry Buttimer said funding to drug projects was being cut and that the scarcity of residential beds for addicts had not been addressed.