521. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Health for an update on the review into the Drug and Alcohol Taskforce Handbook. [46150/23]

Hildegarde Naughton, Minister of State at the Department of Health: Drug and Alcohol Task Forces play a key role in the implementation of the national drugs strategy, ' Reducing Harm Supporting Recovery'. Action 50 of the strategy commits to ensuring that Task Forces have proper arrangements in place for the selection and renewal of the Chairperson, Members of Task Forces and for having proper procedures in place for addressing conflicts of interest.

The governance and operation of the task forces is set out in a handbook published in 2011. It defines the role of the task forces within the national and local framework required to address the existing and emerging threats from problem drug use.

A Governance and Performance framework for task forces is currently being developed. This framework will inform future work on the revision of the handbook.