Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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847. To ask the Minister for Health the funding provided to each drugs task force for each year since 2008; the population covered by each task force; and his plans to increase core funding for the task forces in 2019 [13664/19]

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Health allocated funding of almost €100 million to the HSE for addiction services in 2019.

The HSE National Service Plan for 2019 sets out the type and volume of addiction services to be provided, having regard to the funding allocated.

In addition, the Department provides a further €28 million to Drug and Alcohol Task Forces through various channels of funding including the HSE.

On 6th March 2019, I announced additional funding of €1 million for implementation of the National Drugs Strategy; "Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery".

This funding, which will be provided on a recurring, multi-annual basis, will address the priorities set down in the Strategy including early harm reduction responses, emerging trends in substance misuse, and improving services for at-risk groups.

Working in partnership with statutory, community and voluntary sectors is central to this response.

I therefore invited the Local and Regional Drug and Alcohol Task Forces, and the HSE, to a consultation meeting in the Department of Health on 26th March to discuss how best to target the additional funding.

Table 1.1. details local and regional Task Force funding for the last ten years.

Table 2.2. provides estimationof adult population by DATF Area.

Table 1.1

Table 2.2