Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

Regarding the overall spend, there is very little capital spending in our Department and, in some cases, little or nothing. For example, an allocation of €3 million was made in the capital budget under the national drugs strategy this year. As it turned out, not all of that was used and some of it was transferred to current spending towards the end of the year to meet demands in that area.

I refer to CLÁR funding. For a variety of reasons, not least of which is the fact that local authorities have found it difficult during the past year to propose programmes that would qualify for CLÁR, a small amount of money has been left over. Unfortunately, this will not be spent because local authorities and other community groups have been unable to access the matching funding.

Spending in the subhead related to the drugs area has been reduced on the current side by between 1.3% and 1.7%. I chose this course of action deliberately but the overall average cut or reduction has been approximately 2.7%.

Both the local and regional drugs taskforces have been advised in the past week of their allocation for the coming year. They are in discussions with the Department at the moment. I have requested that any reductions which arise are made through further savings in the area of administration, overheads and travel. The last place I wish to see further reductions is in services targeted at the front line, especially at vulnerable clients, such as those available in the drugs milieu.

Current spending this year in the drugs area is €32.79 million with €1 million allocated to capital. Although I do not have the precise figures, the comparison for last year was a reduction of approximately 2% overall in tacking the drugs problem.

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