Kevin Galvin
The South-East has had the third highest new referrals to drug treatment centres across the country.
That's according to the Health Research Board, who published their 2014 - 2020 Drug Treatment Data report.
It says that there have been 470 new referrals in 2020 - down from 599 the year previous - but still the third-largest in the country.
Speaking to Beat News, substance misuse lead for the South-East Lisa Robson says the pandemic has seen a significant rise in people using their services.
"People are out there and they're using their heroin, their opiates...
"...and when there was difficulty getting hold of those drugs with COVID - particularly in the early stages where there was lockdown between counties and the transport of drugs was probably impacted - we had an number of higher presentations to the service looking for treatment."
The report also says people using services in full employment has almost doubled between 2014 and 2020.
Speaking to Beat News, substance misuse lead for the South-East Lisa Robson says drug misue spans socio-economic situations.
"We've always seen that, there's always a cohort of people who can function whilst using drugs or alcohol.
"Usually when they present to our services there's a reason for it; maybe there's a problem with family - maybe someone's found out about the drug use - or it's impacting on their impacting on their work life, and their family-life balance as well."
You can hear our full interview with Lisa below
Drug treatment service numbers: Waterford- 051 848 658; Wexford- 053 925 9825; South Tipperary- 052 617 7900; Carlow/Kilkenny- 056 778 46 38
