An Leas-Chathaoirleach: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick: I also welcome the Minister of State and thank her for coming to the House to address my request for an update on the drugs strategy. As the Minister of State at the Department of Health with special responsibility for the national drugs strategy, she has a significant role in respect of this matter. I commend her on the work she is doing and thank her for her engagement with the Joint Committee on Drugs Use, which has been very welcome and constructive. I look forward to working with her on the new drugs strategy.

The Minister of State and I have discussed this matter previously. I am from Dublin and she is from Carlow, but this matter relates to the entire country. When local drugs task forces were first established in 1997, it was the very first time that a formal structure had been put in place for engagement between the statutory and the voluntary and community sectors. It gave communities a voice for the first time and a mechanism by means of which to respond to the drugs epidemic and to the challenges relating to it that existed in their areas.

The world has changed significantly since 1997. When those local and regional task forces were established, the drugs culture in Ireland and how drugs presented was primarily an issue for Dublin. I am sorry to say that, but it is a fact. Issues with drugs were predominantly to do with heroin use and were concentrated largely though not exclusively in marginalised, disadvantaged communities. Over 20 years later, the world has changed, Dublin has changed and the country as a whole has changed. We must accept that the challenge relating to drugs has changed as well. It is no longer dominated by heroin but by polydrug use. The fastest rising use of any drug is that relating to cocaine. It is no longer isolated to disadvantaged or marginalised communities. It is no longer concentrated in urban areas of Dublin. It is a national issue. It is an issue that is affecting all communities across the country.

Accepting that there is a crisis with polydrug use, that it is a crisis affecting communities all over the country - rural and urban - and that insufficient work has been done to scale up in order to deal with the problem, I want the Minister of State to provide an update on the drugs strategy, how it is going to scale to address the nationwide problem, how it is going to address polydrug use and how it is going to ensure that community voices, which are now very diverse in nature, are heard. I also want to hear how the strategy will be used to increase resources and provide funding for prevention.

Our overall approach has rightly been to respond to the drug user, the addiction and the drug abuse, and to try to assist detoxification and active and continued recovery. There has been incredible work done, not just by the local drugs task forces but also by everybody who works in this sector. However, the funding provided has been inconsistent and piecemeal. It has not allowed for scaling to address the problem of polydrug use on a nationwide basis. It also has not allowed for a scaling-up of the infrastructure and supports that are needed, especially around prevention. I refer here to youth work and youth diversion. We want a health-led approach but to achieve that we have to have people make healthy choices and healthy decisions for themselves. We have to support our young people, their families and our communities to do that. I hope that the drugs strategy is going to assist in this regard. I also hope that the Minister of State can provide an update on it. I look forward to her response.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor, Minister of State at the Department of Health: Senator Fitzpatrick has been so helpful and has worked extremely hard on the drugs committee. As she will know, the national drugs strategy is the centrepiece of the Government’s commitment to a health-led approach to drug use. It has been almost ten years since our last strategy was drafted, which is a long time. The drug situation has changed dramatically, as we all know and as the Senator said. This is about everywhere now, from rural Ireland to our cities. Drugs have reached every part of the country, and I am very mindful of that. We have new patterns of drug use, with increased use of cocaine - which the Senator spoke about - and newer synthetic substances. Drug use affects all communities across the country, regardless of whether they are rural, urban, wealthy or deprived. It is everywhere. This brings its own challenges. It is important that we rise to the challenge in this regard and ensure that everyone who needs services can access them, wherever they are in the country. This is something I am very particular about. Wherever you live, you should be able to access services.

As the Senator knows, I established an expert steering group to oversee the drafting of the new strategy. This was supported by a reference group. On the reference group, there are people from front-line services, families and people with lived experience. It was important to me to have this. The representation of these groups was particularly important because we need to see families involved. I am very mindful that in the draft of the new drugs strategy, one of the things mentioned is how we encourage awareness, how we try to prevent drug use and how we work and communicate with families and support them.

That was the really important thing for me.

The strategy was also informed by the evaluation of the consultations with, as the Senator knows, stakeholders, trends in drug and harmful alcohol use and the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on Drugs Use, of which, of course, Senators are all very much aware. That played a huge part in this as well.

As the Senator knows, I recently received a draft of the new strategy, and I know the Senator's committee has received it too. It sets out five strategic pillars which will be delivered through 30 actions over a two-year period. The draft strategy envisages a key role for the six HSE health regions to co-ordinate the planning, funding and delivery of HSE and community drug services. That is the first thing we did. We have the five pillars and we will work off them with the 30 actions. This is in order to address inequality in access to services between areas and to integrate services with primary care. It is important that service planning in the future is driven by equality of access. There should be no geographic or social barriers to accessing services. I am very mindful of that too. It is also important that peer-led and community-based services that reflect the lived experience of the local communities receive the support they need. To support this aim, the Department of Health has commissioned an audit of drug services. This is the start to it. The audit is examining the relationship between the demand for services and area-based deprivation, taking into account rural-urban and gender factors. I expect to receive the final report on this study shortly. The study, this audit of the drug services, is really important. It was the first thing I had requested with the Department. 

The remit of the HSE health regions will be supported by engagement with stakeholders, including our drug task forces and community-based services. I have decided that a process will be put in place whereby the Department of Health, the HSE health regions, drug task forces and all stakeholders will review existing structures with a view to strengthening stakeholder input into planning. It is a matter of all of us working together. It is important we enhance the integration of our community-based services within our primary care and involve people with lived and living experience. I expect this process to be finished by June 2026.

I fully intend to ensure the continued role of drug task forces in the implementation of the national drugs strategy and, in particular, in the co-ordination of the planning, funding and delivery of drug services.

Like the Senator said, the task forces play a huge role, and I can only compliment them. We have 24 task forces around the country, and the work they have done, as she said, from the beginning and in the communities has helped many families and helped people living with drugs or people in the service, so it is important we commend them and thank them for their work.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick: I join the Minister of State in complimenting the local drugs task forces. I served on the original Tolka area task force, now known as the Finglas-Cabra task force. Through that we did incredible work, and the task forces have done incredible work. Not only are they helping individuals and their families and then the wider community to deal with their addiction and achieve recovery, but they have also established really powerful and constructive relationships between the statutory authorities, the Garda, the local authorities, the schools and others in the community. They are incredibly powerful. I really welcome the Minister of State's commitment that the local drugs task forces will have a significant role in the new drugs strategy. Also, the principle of equality of access to services is imperative. We have an unequal distribution and an unequal access system at the moment. We have places where there are long waiting lists. There are places where there are absolutely no services. It is unacceptable. I welcome the Minister of State's acknowledgement and her recognition of the nature and the needs of our drugs crisis now, that it is nationwide, that it is urban and rural, that it involves polydrug use and that it is not just in marginalised communities. We also need to ensure that very significant effort is put into prevention. There needs to be ring-fenced funding for prevention. There needs to be multi-annual funding for the drugs task forces and for all our drugs work.

I commend the Minister on her work.

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor: Again, I thank the Senator. As I have said, I have shared the draft national drugs strategy with the joint committee. I will also take the report into account before finalising the strategy because it is important. This is about everybody working together. The draft strategy has also been published on the Department of Health website. As I mentioned earlier, I have now decided to carry out a public consultation because that is important. That public consultation will start soon. I will inform everyone about that. I ask that anyone who wants to have a say - maybe he or she feels there is something we could change or has an idea as to how we change it - should have his or her say. The strategy will go to public consultation for six weeks. It should start in February. I will have the dates shortly.

The one thing I have learned is that there is not a family in Ireland that has not been affected by drugs, whether it is a family member, a neighbour, a cousin or someone else. We are now in a society where things have to change and we have to be there. We have to move and do what we can to get services as quickly as we can to those who need them. I think the new drugs strategy will play a huge role in that. Then, working with the Department and the HSE, again, as the Senator said, it is a matter of working around the whole country on where the services are needed and to make sure that those who need them get them. I thank the Senator for this Commencement matter.