Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to make it very clear to Deputy Curran that the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Harris, were very much a part of the launching of the new strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery. The latter came into being as a result of a public consultations held throughout the country. At those consultations, it became very clear that task forces are unhappy because funding has not been increased. We will not talk about the past, however. We should focus on the future. In allocating more money in the latter part of 2018, I was very conscious fact that I was only providing short bursts of funding to fill small holes. In the coming weeks and months, I intend to look at the envelope I have and consider options for the provision of additional funding to task forces. However, I do not want to just give out money willy-nilly. I want to make a real impact and provide core funding from one year to the next. It is not good enough to give small amounts of money to a group and expect it to do good work with it. We need continuous funding, and I will be looking at that issue.

Although we did not have a great deal of success in getting money via the budget, we have received more funding in the past couple of weeks. I intend to look into how to use that money in the next couple of weeks to establish how that can be best spent within the task force areas.

On the task force handbook, it should be remembered that the existing version was released in 2011. It is time to examine the structures of the task forces and investigate where we might make gains and improvements in areas where what was envisaged has not worked as well as we hoped. There has been a very positive reaction from the people on the task forces who are responsible for the handbook. I hope the new handbook will be available by the end of the month.

I agree that projects cannot continue to be funded unless money is made available on an annual basis rather than in the form of once-off allocations. We have not been lucky in the past. As the Deputy is aware, last year was the first in a long time that the drugs policy department was allocated funding. Of the €7 million allocated previously, €2 million went to mental health and homelessness services and the other €5 million was spent on the implementation of strategy, not only in the context of drugs task forces but also within communities and the HSE. I am confident that in the coming weeks and months we will start to make an impact and allocate additional funding through the task forces. We will not just fund anything; the funding will be given for a reason. I am of the view that the only way to strengthen task forces is to provide them with continuous funding. In order to do that, we must have a proper model. I have looked at some of the issues regarding task forces and the many reports that have been compiled. For us to get this right, it is important that we begin this year by ensuring that any money available to task forces is allocated correctly and is strategically located within task forces so that it can make a difference in communities. Deputy Curran and I are singing from the same hymn sheet, but I need a few more weeks in order to put in place some of the funding that has been made available and to look at the areas in which we should be spending it in the context of the task forces and communities.

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