Drug and alcohol treatment data for 2004–2018 from the National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS) are now available online through the Health Research Board (HRB) National Drugs Library website at http://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/tables/ . The NDTRS is a health information system that collects anonymous information about drug and alcohol treatment episodes in Ireland.

The online database contains 14 years of treatment data that can be searched using interactive tables to produce customised reports. Variables available for analysis include year, age, treatment status, gender, geographical region of residence (county, Health Service Executive (HSE) region, local health office, local or regional drug and alcohol task force area).

The interactive tables now enable the grouping of results by primary categories and secondary categories based on variables such as source of referral, employment status, living status, type of accommodation, education, polysubstance use, and injecting.

When interpreting the data, it should be noted that each NDTRS record relates to a treatment episode (a case) and not to a person. As there is currently no unique health identifier system in place in Ireland, the same person can be counted more than once in a reporting year if they had more than one treatment episode in that year.

Before using the interactive tables, you will be asked to read and accept some terms and conditions. These include an undertaking not to publish tables where any individual cell contains less than five cases; to acknowledge the NDTRS as the source of data, and to provide the HRB National Drugs Library1 with copies of all documents in which NDTRS data are used.