I appreciate the fact the Minister of State is here so I hope we can get some information for the local drug and alcohol task forces. These are the people who are doing the work on the front line in communities affected by drug abuse. I hope to hear differently from the Minister of State but it seems as though this Government is continuing the policy we have seen over the past ten years or so of what is the effective slow strangulation of our drug and alcohol task forces. We know that between 2015 and 2025, the overall health budget increased by 94.7%. It has almost doubled and yet core funding for local drug and alcohol task forces decreased by 4.5%. In its new budget, the Government is saying that there is no cut to funding for community drug services in 2026 but when we dig into the detail, that does not seem to be the case. The first year cost of auto-enrolment for drug task forces will be 1.5%. That will increase year on year but in the first year, we are talking about a cost of 1.5%. There is no funding provided to enable the task forces to meet that. That is a crisis for them. These people want their staff to be able to access pensions but this needs to be resourced. Where are they meant to come up with this money? There is no uplift for these projects to cover the rising cost of living, so it certainly looks like a cut in core funding because extra costs are being put on them without extra resources being provided for it. It is concerning that in the fact sheet on the budget from the Government, there is no reference to the drug related intimidation and violence engagement, DRIVE, project. This is an interagency project to respond to drug-related intimidation. This programme is rolled out in different task forces across the country. In Whitechurch in my constituency, the Whitechurch addiction support project, which is supported through DRIVE, caters to 75 families. These families are receiving threats from drug dealers. It is a horrific situation to be in. I have spoken to people in this situation many times. Because of DRIVE, the project was able to hire a dedicated worker for families experiencing drug-related intimidation. It managed to get two-year funding for this from the community safety innovation fund. That funding has now ceased and the project does not know what it will do from 1 January. What support will it be able to provide for the 75 families it was able to help in the past year? I hope it is just an error and that funding is being provided for DRIVE, so I look forward to hearing the Minister of State's response on that. A clear sign the task forces are being effectively run down from the top down is the fact they are not going to be included in the new reference group to support the implementation of the new national drugs strategy. The Department is saying that it will take a cross-sectoral approach as opposed to a representative one, so the people who are delivering these services on the ground in places like Tallaght, Whitechurch, Ballymun and other places across the country suffering from deprivation and experiencing drug abuse and all the problems that go with it will not be listened to. There is a saying from the disability rights movement "nothing about us without us" and yet here the people on the ground providing the services are not being included in the development of the implementation of the new national drugs strategy.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I appreciate the answer, but the Minister of State knows as well as I do that it does not actually answer any of the points that I raised. I am hoping that in her two-minute supplementary response the Minister of State will address these issues. I appreciate that she gave the answer she was provided with, but this is causing real concern for task forces across the country. I will repeat the basic points I made in my initial contribution. First, there is a cut to core funding of the task forces because no funding is being provided for auto-enrolment. Will the Minister of State clarify if any extra funding is going to be provided to meet the 1.5% increase in costs in the first year? Second, I asked about an additional ongoing funding uplift for the projects to cover the cost of living. Third, I asked about DRIVE, an important national project which was being rolled out across the country but appears to have disappeared in terms of funding. There is still a website talking about how good it is and there is a press release about it but currently, as far as I can tell, there is no funding provided for it. In addition, I ask the Minister of State to address the exclusion of the local drugs and alcohol task forces from the reference group to support the implementation of the new national drugs strategy. She said that they are an integral part of the delivery of this, but it does not look like they are an integral part when they are not being included in it. I look forward to answers to those questions. I repeat the point that it certainly looks to me, and I think to many other people on the ground, that there is a slow strangulation of these task forces, which are providing vital services on the front line. Applications can be made for things like the community services enhancement fund, but that is not a substitute to core funding. That is what we hear from the task forces all the time. It is not a substitute because they cannot make long-term plans on the basis that they apply for this grant now. They need to be able to have permanent staff and be able to provide a future for people. They need to be able to pay for their pensions, so the key thing is core funding.
Sentiment score: 0.07
Will they be included in the reference group?
Sentiment score: 0.00