THE government has come under fire for spending millions of euro a year on mandatory drug tests many experts deem pointless in the fight against heroin addiction.

Some 10,000 people on methadone treatment programmes are required to give one test a week at around €11 per test, which costs €5.7m annually, not including the cost of transporting samples.

However, many drug treatment experts claim the testing policy is not only financially unnecessary but counterproductive and that a policy of self-reporting could improve the service.

"It's an unjustifiable expense," said Dr Garrett McGovern, a specialist in addiction.

"It's custom and practice. When they devised the methadone treatment service in the '90s, whoever was responsible decided we needed to do these tests.

"They were doing them twice a week, sometimes three times a week."

The issue will feature among submissions to an ongoing review of the state's methadone treatment programmes.

McGovern pointed out that while testing can be beneficial to decision-making with individual patients and can be useful in the legal process, it was also a flawed approach.

In his review, McGovern quoted a report which stated: "Results of numerous studies suggest that there is little to be gained by using urinalysis to monitor drug use, if the main purpose of the procedure is to deter patients from using illicit drugs.

"On the basis of the available evidence, it has to be concluded that there is no compelling evidence that the absence of urinalysis leads to an increase in illicit drug use."

The HSE's review of the methadone treatment protocol is now underway with approximately 60 written submissions received.

The review is due to be completed by the end of October.