Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 26 September 2024

Committee on Drugs Use

A Health-Led Approach: Discussion

9:30 am

Ms Anna Quigley:

I will finish on this because I could rant forever. We are now in a space, as one of the members of the committee who was chair of a task force noted, where the task forces have been totally sidelined. We have structures there and they are not being allowed or supported to do the job. Everybody recognises the need for interagency and integrated work, but what we are doing is going against it. Even the way the new funding for drugs is being directed goes against those principles of integration. There is massive frustration that there are very simple straightforward ways of doing it even if none are perfect and none solve the problem.