Mr. Jim Walsh:

The issue of prevention is something we have tried to get a grip on in recent years because it has been the Cinderella of the policy response to drugs. The task forces have done some good work locally but they did not have a national framework or structure to support it. Last year we rolled out funding of €500,000 per annum to support drug prevention initiatives. One of these is to do an evaluation of Know the Score, which is a school-based programme developed by the HSE with input from the Department of Education. It will be evaluated to see how effective it is.