Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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453. To ask the Minister for Health the amount of funding her Department has allocated to drug addiction prevention initiatives in 2024, and to date in 2025. [68684/25]

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The previous National Drugs Strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery 2017-2025 contained the following strategic goal in relation to the prevention of drug use

Strengthen the prevention of drug and alcohol use and the associated harms among children and young people.

Under the previous National Drugs Strategy, significant funding was invested in evidence based drug prevention. In 2023, a first of its kind funding programme to support evidence based drug prevention programmes across the country was launched, providing €1.5 million over years to 5 projects. In 2024, €500,000 was provided, with each of the 5 projects receiving €100,000 each. In 2025, €400,000 was provided to 4 of the projects.

In order to inform the successor National Drugs Strategy, the Dept. of Health is working with the Health Research Board and The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to implement the UNODC 'Review of Prevention Systems' in Ireland. Funding of €95,473 was awarded to the HRB to support this work, which will deliver its final report in early 2026.