Galway Bay fm newsroom - 156 people in Galway received opioid-substitution treatment in the first six months of this year.
In the vast majority of cases, this is used to treat heroin-addiction.
In Ireland, the main treatment for opioid addiction involves methadone and the drug buprenorphine.
According to details released under the Freedom of Information Act, 7,645 people received opioid-substitution prescriptions from a community pharmacy in the first six months of this year.
This involved 5,200 men and 2,400 women.
Nearly 4,500 were prescribed by doctors in Dublin, while there were also high numbers in Cork, Limerick and Louth.
There was a 4 per cent increase in the number of people who received opioid-substitution prescriptions last year. For more on this story, tune in to Galway Bay fm news on the hour...
