Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also congratulate Deputy Stephen Donnelly on his new role as Minister for Health. I wish him well and commit to working with him in a positive and outcome-focused way that ensures that we deliver for and with our communities. As Deputy O'Reilly said we will also do our best to hold the Minister to account, as is our role.

Covid-19 has shown once again the true spirit of community that when needed, they are ready to help in whatever way they can. We must ensure that we harness, nurture and cherish the skills and expertise in the community. I have been involved in working and supporting communities in Blanchardstown for nearly 25 years. I have seen the highs and lows of community-led action to tackle problematic drug use. I was a founding member of the local drugs task force and several drug and youth and community projects. To be honest, we have gone back about 25 years when it comes to our voice being heard. Unfortunately our voice is being ignored by HSE management in particular. I have read in detail the programme for Government and the promises made on drug and alcohol services. In the future I would like to come back to the Minister on some of those concerns but for now I have a couple of questions.

I recently asked the previous Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, about supports for community drug projects and for funding for PPE and I note that the Minister mentioned earlier that there was a potential cost of over €1 billion for PPE for the HSE. Unfortunately, the answer I got back was that community drug projects across the State are not getting any funding whatsoever for PPE or for any adjustments that they need to make to their facilities. This shows a complete lack of understanding of funding of community drug projects.

As someone who is currently a board member of the Dublin 15 Community Drugs Team, every cent is spent and accounted for every year. There is no capacity for PPE and no capacity for us to be able to change the way our building operates to enable us to operate the service in the best way we possibly can. There is no leeway in funding and there is no magic tree there we can go to. Our funding comes primarily from the HSE and unfortunately that has been rejected.

We provide a programme called the Arising Stabilisation Programme and I invite the Minister out to see it in the future when we do get back up and running. It is a huge support for older, more vulnerable participants in our project and we have real concerns about how we are going to get that back up and running again. The feedback we have gotten over the last number of weeks and months when the project has been closed and we have been dealing with people through Zoom and one-to-one phone calls etc. is that these are deeply vulnerable people who need real one-to-one support. How we are going to do that given the costs that are going to be incurred by us? Renting other rooms is another additional cost that we cannot meet and that community drugs teams and other community services just do not have funding for into the future. Looking at funding it is really important, now especially. Will the Minister look at funding for community drug teams and how that is supported from now until the end of the year? Most likely it would need to be into the new year because as I said we do not have the funding to be able to do the work that is needed.

Drugs affect all communities and none is immune to their devastating effects. However, some are more affected than others and we work in very disadvantaged areas. Will the Minister give a commitment that disadvantaged communities be given a real voice at the table, from the top, on the national strategy and then on the ground with the local drug task forces? CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign has looked at the programme for Government and at many other programmes for Government and national drugs strategies. They have said: "We have consistently argued for the strengthening of the role of the DATFs and for resourcing of the DATF projects and we need to see this Programme finally delivering on the resources required." That is really critical as we move forward because that community has been really affected during the Covid crisis.

I have one other question around vaccines. Are there any plans to make the flu vaccine free for all citizens to take pressure off the services if a second wave materialises? I was talking to a health official last night and one of the official's big concerns is around Covid-19 combined with the flu coming into the winter and how we are going to cope with that.

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