Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I can confirm to the Deputy that the Office of the Minister for Drugs remains very much in operation with a clear focus on dealing with the issue of problem drug use in Ireland. I can confirm also that responsibility for the national drugs strategy will rest with me, as Minister. I look forward to working on it and enjoyed working on it previously. I am sure I will have the same engagement with the sector as I did in the past.

The Government remains fully committed to addressing the drugs problem and I believe that my appointment as a Minister with direct responsibility in this area will facilitate the implementation of the drugs strategy in a timely and co-ordinated fashion. Many at community level have been campaigning for some time that the Minister with responsibility for the drugs strategy should be a member of the Government with a seat at Cabinet.

During my previous period as Minister for State with responsibility for this area, significant steps forward were made in the drugs area. From my experience on the ground at that time, I am very familiar with the ongoing issues in terms of the drugs problem in communities and the initiatives being taken to address them. I acknowledge the excellent work done by my colleague, Deputy John Curran, while he was Minister of State, in driving the finalisation of the National Drugs Strategy 2009-16, the implementation of which is being pursued vigorously across a range of Departments and agencies.

I fully intend to build on this work and to implement a continuous assessment approach to progress the 63 actions in the strategy to ensure that we achieve successful outcomes. Furthermore, I believe that the structures now in place under the strategy will better facilitate me to effectively fulfil that role.

With regard to drugs and alcohol, I was one of the main advocates to Government on combining the approach as regards substance misuse. I was delighted with the decision to prepare a national substance misuse strategy and I look forward to this being put in place within the timeframe envisaged. As Deputy Byrne will be aware, a steering group, which is jointly chaired by officials of the Department of Health and Children and the office of the Minister of State with responsibility for drugs, has been established to develop proposals for submission to Government before the end of the year.

I can assure the Deputy of my commitment to press ahead with the ongoing implementation of the national drugs strategy and to support the timely finalisation and subsequent implementation of the national substance misuse strategy, incorporating both alcohol and drugs.

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