Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, as always. I really appreciate his great commitment to us in the Seanad.

I really welcomed the announcement in the budget of an additional €6 million for the Minister of State’s Department. I have submitted this matter because we really need to understand how much of the funding is being apportioned to the drugs and alcohol tasks forces under the drugs strategy. The Minister of State is no doubt aware of the views of the chairs of the drugs and alcohol task forces around Dublin. I am privileged to be the chair of the Dublin 12 drugs and alcohol task force. For much of my contribution, I will use its words. The drugs initiative budget was cut every year between 2008 and 2014, resulting in an overall cut of 35% to key services responding to the drug problem on the ground. There has been little or no attempt to restore the pre-recession budgets and no increase in the allocation between 2014 and 2018. In 2019, there was an additional €20,000 per drugs task force but half of that was clawed back in 2020. In 2021, a need for an increase in drugs and alcohol task force budgets was anticipated. There has been a failure year on year, which is frustrating and demoralising for those working on the ground. The drugs problem has become more widespread. It is complex and deep rooted. Each community has its own problems to deal with and its own needs to be met. Therefore, communities need discretion to model their actions and respond at local level.

We have a commitment in the programme for Government. It states:

The Drug and Alcohol Task Forces play a key role in implementing this strategy and increasing access at local level to harm reduction initiatives. We will examine how we can continue to support it in identifying local need in communities, and support targeted initiatives addressing drug and alcohol misuse.

To date, there has not been great progress in supporting the increase in the demand for those services, although I acknowledge the Minister of State’s absolute commitment and support. I acknowledge also that he recently met representatives of each of the drugs task forces and set out the six strategic areas on which he is going to work with them. However, the matter highlighted in the budget submission of the drugs and alcohol task forces is that, although there is inflation, the budget has not matched it.

There is an increase in demand, the tsunami expected after Covid. We need an increase. There is an increase in the number of people with a dual diagnosis to which we need to be able to respond.There is no discretion for design and delivery in the scope of the funding available to services. We need to build back better. The pandemic response needs to be phased, targeted and very community focused and community-based because the culture and context is unique to each task force. I see this even with our task force and the individual areas within Dublin 12. I would welcome the Minister of State's comments on how much of this budget is being allocated to task forces. It would be great to see a major amount because it is more than needed, to say the very least.