Pike, Brigid (2010) Drugs come under new department. Drugnet Ireland, Issue 34, Summer 2010, pp. 1-2.
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Following the reorganisation of government departments announced on 23 March 2010, the Office of the Minister for Drugs (OMD) is now located in the new Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs (DCEGA). Chief Whip Pat Carey TD, who was Minister of State with responsibility for drugs strategy and community affairs for 11 months between June 2007 and May 2008, was appointed Minister for Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, including responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy and the OMD.
Explaining the reconfiguration of the DCEGA, the Taoiseach said:1
It is important, while addressing the priority issues in responding to unemployment and driving economic recovery, that we do not lose sight of the importance of social development, the targeting of the most vulnerable and support for those working to make a difference right across our communities. I have therefore decided that the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs will become the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs and will incorporate responsibility for social inclusion policy and family policy from the Department of Social and Family Affairs and for equality, disability, integration and human rights from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
In the reorganisation, former Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Eamon Ó Cuív TD, went as minister to the new Department of Social Protection, and the former minister of state with responsibility for drugs strategy and community affairs, John Curran TD, was appointed Government Chief Whip.
Mary White TD was appointed Minister of State at the departments of Justice and Law Reform, Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs, and Education and Skills, with special responsibility for equality and human rights, and integration. It may be expected that the issue of drugs will come within her purview as well. In recent years, explicit policy commitments to recognise and address the human rights issues involved in drug control have been made at both UN and EU levels.2 With regard to equality, Drugnet Ireland regularly reports on research highlighting how the drugs issue impacts on members of groups vulnerable to discrimination and provided for under Ireland’s equality legislation, including young people, women, and members of the LGBT community, of new Irish communities and of the Traveller community.3
1. Cowen B (2010, 23 March) Parliamentary Debates Dáil Éireann (Official report: unrevised): Nomination of members of government: motion. Vol. 705, No. 1, p. 9. Available at http://debates.oireachtas.ie/Xml/30/DAL20100323.PDF
2. See Pike B (2009) Development of Ireland’s drug strategy 2000–2007. Overview Series 8. Dublin: Health Research Board. pp. 99–101.
3. Under the Equal Status Acts 2000–2004, discrimination is prohibited on nine grounds, including gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, and membership of the Traveller community.
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