The Methadone Treatment Services Review Group was set up to consider the arrangements in place for the management and care of heroin-dependent drug misusers by general practitioners and pharmacists, and to advise the Minister for Health on the approach to be taken in the future. A central treatment list for the prescribing of methadone had been established in 1993, and by June 1997 there were 2,232 people on that list. Of these, about half were receiving treatment in an Eastern Health Board treatment centre or in the Drug Treatment Centre in Pearse Street, and the rest were being treated by general practitioners. It was within this context that the review group made its recommendations.

The group concluded that methadone, as part of a comprehensive programme of care, was still a valid treatment for opiate-dependent persons. It recommended that services should be developed using the Protocol for the Prescribing of Methadone (1993); that methadone should be available free of charge to all persons undergoing methadone treatment for opiate dependence; and that the methadone treatment protocol scheme should be available nationally. Recommendations were also made on the type and concentration of methadone to be used, on the roles of general practitioners and pharmacists, and on the relationships between treatment centres, general practitioners and pharmacists.