Departmental Strategies Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-05 ============================================================ Mary Fitzpatrick (FF), Industrial and Commercial Panel 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. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-05/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-05