Health Services
Dail Éireann — 2021-12-07
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Frankie Feighan (FG), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank the Deputies for raising this important issue. I welcome this opportunity to confirm for the House the continued participation of the community and voluntary sector in the national oversight committee for the national drugs strategy.
I convened a meeting of the national oversight committee on Friday. My door is always open to meeting various groups. I have met CityWide on many occasions. It has been part of various deputations I have met previously. The meeting was attended by three representatives from the community and voluntary sector, representing CityWide, the National Voluntary Drug and Alcohol Sector and Uisce, the service user organisation. A fourth position remains vacant and will be filled in due course. At the meeting, I provided reassurance that there is no proposal to remove community and voluntary groups from the national oversight committee. This appears to have arisen from a misunderstanding by CityWide of the Department's proposals to establish a civil society on drugs. I also dispute the accuracy of the claim that community groups are being written out of the national drugs strategy. To be clear: Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery, a health-led response to drugs and alcohol use, remains in place as the national drug strategy until 2025.
As the strategy is a dynamic process, there is flexibility to introduce new actions to address emerging issues in the period from 2021 to 2025. To this end, I recently published the mid-term review of the actions in the strategy. Based on the learning from the mid-term review, six strategic priorities for 2021 to 2025 were identified. These priorities strengthen the health-led approach, reflect commitments in the programme for Government and align with the EU drugs strategy and action plan for 2021 to 2025. I assure Deputies that the priorities complement and build on the five goals in the national drugs strategy. The interagency approach involving a partnership between statutory, community and voluntary bodies remains central to the strategy, as does strengthening the resilience of communities to respond to the drug problem.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-12-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-12-07