Drugs strategy ‘in danger of collapse’

Former ministers of State who have overseen the National Drugs Strategy will today warn that the partnership delivering the plan is “in danger of collapse” because powers are being centralised under the HSE.

Drugs strategy ‘in danger of collapse’

Former ministers of State who have overseen the National Drugs Strategy will today warn that the partnership delivering the plan is “in danger of collapse” because powers are being centralised under the HSE.

Nine former ministers of State with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy have put their name to a statement which is being made today at a CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign event in Dublin, in which they warn that grassroots stakeholders are losing their authority.

The statement has been signed by every former drugs minister between 1996 and 2016 — Pat Rabbitte, Chris Flood, Eoin Ryan, Noel Ahern, Pat Carey, Alex White, John Curran TD, Róisín Shortall TD, and Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.

Mr Rabbitte said that every successive government has reaffirmed National Drugs Strategy’s partnership approach since the plan’s adoption by the state in 1996.

He said this recognises “that community participation and interagency working is crucial to an effective response to an increasingly complex and challenging drugs problem.”

“Two years on from the launch of Reducing Harm Supporting Recovery, we, as former ministers, are concerned and frustrated at the failure of government to meet these commitments,” he said.

“At national, regional, and local level, decision-making authority is being taken away from the strategy’s partnership structures, and is reverting to the Department of Health and the HSE, who now make the key decisions centrally and without consultation with communities,” Mr Rabbitte said.

Mr Carey said the role of the drug and alcohol task forces in delivering on the strategy at local and regional level is being undermined, and said such task forces are being treated as if they are HSE-led projects rather than interagency partnership bodies.

“We are calling on the Taoiseach to appoint representation at a senior level from his own department to the National Oversight Committee (NOC) to ensure that the partnership structures, ie the NOC, its sub-committees, and the task forces, are supported at the highest level of government to do the job that is set out for them in the National Drugs Strategy,” Mr Carey said.

Dr Aileen O’Gorman of The University of the West of Scotland, who will speak at the same event, said community drugs services have “a long and impressive tradition of responding to the needs of people experiencing drug-related harms in their communities”.

“On a daily basis, they work with people with multiple interdependent needs — a legacy of unmet needs by the State.

“Unfortunately, they are having to do so in an increasing hostile policy environment that often refutes the value of their approach and work, while continuing to create the needs community services strive to address,” she said.

“Community drug services’ unique contribution to the public good is their capacity to address drug-related harms through a broader whole-person and whole-community approach and to provide accessible, inclusive, and safe spaces to deliver trauma-informed care,” Dr O’Gorman said.

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