Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to highlight the community sector's experience of the past two years of the new national drugs strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery - A health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017-2025. Key policy decisions are not being brought for discussion and agreement to the national oversight committee or the standing sub-committee, as was supposed to happen, and are instead being largely made within the confines of the Department of Health and the HSE. This centralised decision-making has the knock-on effect of the drugs and alcohol task forces not being enabled or supported to carry out the role assigned to them in implementing the strategy at local and regional levels. The fact of the matter is that communities are being excluded from a role in key decision-making, breaking a key commitment given by the Government in the new strategy.

I acknowledge the work and commitment of CityWide, the community sector voice in this field across the greater Dublin region, and tell the Minister of State the actions that CityWide believes, based on its experience, need to be taken. First, the Department of the Taoiseach needs to take responsibility for oversight of the new strategy. Second, the Taoiseach should convene a national forum of all national drugs strategy stakeholders to set out clearly what is expected of them in their roles in implementing the strategy in line with the principles therein. Third, a community development plan should be put in place at the core of the national drugs strategy. My read of this situation is that the bottom line is that the drug and alcohol task forces must be allowed to do as the national drugs strategy promised, that is, co-ordinate an inter-agency approach to the implementation of the strategy in the context of the needs of their respective regions and areas.

The second part of my Topical Issue matter moves from the wider experience of Dublin and the rest of the country to my constituency. I recently received correspondence from the Cavan Drug and Alcohol Service, which provides a service to the Cavan-Monaghan constituency. I will read from the first paragraph to give a sense of the seriousness of the matter. It comes from a letter to the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, for whom the Minister of State is standing in today, issued on 11 October. It reads:

After almost two decades of delivering community based support services across Cavan and Monaghan CDA Trust CLG (AKA Cavan Drug Awareness) is now making plans to wind down operations and dissolve the company by the end of 2020. Our organisation has received no increase in funding for several years in spite of rising rent, insurance and other costs. We will be unable to retain staff due to being unable to pay increments in line with cost of living increases or invest in new training opportunities for them. At present CDA Trust CLG is the only dedicated addiction support service for two counties [Cavan and Monaghan] part from local methadone prescribing GPs and [a] valued colleague in the HSE.

The service is treating in the order of 50 individuals every week. This service is hugely important in a constituency such as Cavan-Monaghan. What will the Minister of State do to address the deficiency in resourcing?

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