Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I feel like a bit of an interloper here because I am the only Teachta Dála for Dublin Mid-West present with my colleagues from Dublin South-West. However, I knew many of the people on the news report yesterday on a professional basis as a result of the work I used to do. I thank and commend the TDATF for its really stark report on the realities of living with crack cocaine. I am a former director of the Clondalkin drugs and alcohol task force and have worked in front-line addiction centres across Dublin over the years.

As was said, these services are working with one hand behind their back because funding has been reduced over the years. As its report states, the Tallaght task force received €1.3 million in 2010, while the figure in 2021 was €1.2 million. Funding has gone down while the population has gone up and the problems have got worse. This has led to a situation where the task force and the drugs service, through no fault of their own, are starting to be reactive instead of proactive. I commend the Tallaght task force because it has done a proactive piece of work.

I was a task force director making tough decisions and what happened in the past, when we wanted to start a new initiative, whether it related to crack cocaine, weed or whatever it might be, if no other money was there something old we were working on had to go out. That was sometimes a very valuable piece of work, which led to the building blocks and foundations of task forces being eroded. One of the biggest issues concerns multi-annual funding. If one is not getting it, it does not allow planning for the future and for what is coming down the line. We need to start getting there. I will not make this parochial, but I 100% support the Tallaght task force call for €1 million in additional funding for that agency.

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