I find this interesting and as I am not a resident of Eire I concede that you will always have a more accurate picture of public perception, but due to my mother coming from Dublin I have spent a considerable amount of time with my family over there since before I became self aware and while I was always a guest of the country, I still considered it as a second home when cozy in my grandparents house surrounded by my Mothers siblings and my cousins. After developing a particular interest in the emerging dance music among my 80's childhood pop music obsession, it was my oldest cousin who was the first person to push the rave scene on me and the concept of drug taking, which as a child I did not understand at all due to the amount of misleading heroin posters which while accurate in there portrayal of the destruction it causes while showing the cut of the average half dead looking type using the stuff. Why would someone be so idiotic and inject dangerous poisons was something I just did not comprehend until the whole rave thing, the ecstasy, my drug promoting cousin who being 5 years or so older than me was behaving in a manner I had only just discovered the justification of..
I am high so I'v gone right off the point * but to cut to a different long story my mother and all of her siblings have had serious addiction issues with all of the Dublin based members having benzodiazepine prescriptions which from my observation and first hand knowledge from doctor shopping in North Dublin are given out like sweets, at least this was the case up until 7 years ago when I stopped visiting after 33 years due to being tied down on a methadone prescription among other things, such as my mothers alcoholism. Her older sister who lives alone in Swords ended up on the wagon at the age of 21 due to developing a problem so early and despite remaining dry she has had a repeat Rx for alprazolam. My mom's older brother, who died from a massive heart attack while alone in the families beach house (Donabate)and had used cannabis and cocaine for much of his life, with a repeat Rx for bromazepam for good measure. My late grandmother and my cousin both have lifelong diazepam Rx's, my cousin being in his 30's and dependant on cocaine when first asking for it.
So, while the general public may not have that much of an awareness my experience is that they are more readily used than in the UK where asking them is generally seen as drug seeking behaviour. In general I think most people in the UK have a general awareness of their existence, having usually heard of 'Valium' and its uses.
* I left the rant in as Im just sick of deleting messages that I spend ages writing before realising what pointless stream of conciousness pieces or rubbish they are but its Saturday so I will just let this one rock on.
