Written answers

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

Department of Health

National Drugs Strategy Implementation

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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1103. To ask the Minister for Health his views on the connection between social disadvantage and drug abuse and, in particular, between social disadvantage and heroin abuse; his plans for a comprehensive, across government, approach to this issue led by his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34518/14]

Photo of Leo VaradkarLeo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The National Drugs Strategy 2009-2016 is a cross cutting area of public policy and service delivery. It is based on a co-ordinated approach across many Government Departments and Agencies in conjunction with the Community and Voluntary sectors and I intend that this approach will continue.

The overall objective of the Strategy is to tackle the harm caused to individuals and society by the misuse of drugs through a concerted focus on the five pillars of supply reduction, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and research. Periodic reviews of progress across the pillars of the Strategy are carried out through the Oversight Forum on Drugs which I chair and these are posted on my Department's website.

The link between social disadvantage and problem drug use, in particular heroin use, is acknowledged in the National Drugs Strategy. However, the Strategy also recognises that problem drug use by an individual, or a group of people, is rarely caused by a single factor. Instead, the interplay between multiple conditions and factors that put an individual at risk of using or developing problems with drugs influences the experience or outcome. These complex or interlinked factors will vary between communities and individuals.

In recent years, the nature and scale of the drug problem has changed, due to the increasing geographic dispersal of problem drug use, the wider prevalence of polydrug use and the emergence of new psychoactive substances. The response of the HSE has involved the re-orientation of its addiction services towards polydrug issues, using a 4-tiered model approach as a national framework through which to deliver services. Solid progress is being made with a reduction in waiting times for access to services particularly outside the Dublin area, increased availability of places in rehabilitation programmes as well as the continued expansion of the pharmacy needle exchange programme. This work is being complemented by greater focus on integrated care plans for individuals backed up by more co-ordinated inter-agency working.

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