Ireland’s national drugs strategy Reducing harm, supporting recovery: a health-led approach to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017–2025 was launched in July 2017.1 The first progress report on the strategy was published in June 2019, namely Reducing harm, supporting recovery: progress 2018 and planned activity 2019.2

The progress report is structured around the three-year action plan that accompanied the strategy. The strategic action plan 2017–2020 was embedded in the main strategy document and contains 50 actions with a brief description of how each is to be delivered. Lead agencies as well as any associated partners with responsibility for the delivery of each action are also identified.

The strategy sets out a number of ways in which progress on its delivery would be monitored and assessed. Among these was that ‘the key bodies responsible for delivering the strategic actions will be required to report on progress on an annual basis to the Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy’ (p. 73).1 For this report, alongside each action, those responsible for its delivery were invited to report on progress in 2017 and 2018, as well as ‘planned activity’ for 2019 and 2020.

The Drugs Policy Unit of the Department of Health is responsible for collating this feedback, and this report presents the first output from this work. The information reported is descriptive of tasks and activities carried out rather than of outcomes achieved. While information is not provided for all actions, it does provide a useful overview of progress in line with the strategic action plan 2017–2020.

1  Department of Health (2017) Reducing harm, supporting recovery: a health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017-2025. Dublin: Department of Health. https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/27603/

2  Department of Health (2019) Reducing harm, supporting recovery: progress 2018 and planned activity 2019. Dublin: Department of Health. https://www.drugsandalcohol.ie/30660/