I am delighted to welcome everyone to this public meeting to discuss the national drugs strategy. I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, who has responsibility for public health, well-being and the national drugs strategy. She is accompanied by officials from the Department, including Mr. David Leach, assistant secretary for corporate affairs, and Mr. Jim Walsh, principal office for the national drugs policy and social inclusion. Also present as observers are Professor Bobby Smith, youth drug and alcohol services, Ms Mellany McLoone, integrated health area manager for Dublin and the north-east, Dr. Sarah Morton from the national drugs strategy steering group and Mr. Joe O'Neill from the national drugs strategy reference group and chair of the Western Region Drug and Alcohol Task Force.

All witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members of the committee attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. This is due to the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where the Parliament has chosen to sit. In this regard, I ask that any member partaking via MS Teams confirms that he or she is on the grounds of the Leinster House campus prior to making a contribution to the meeting.

I now invite the Minister of State to make her opening statement.

Thank you so much Cathaoirleach and members. I am delighted to be here. I am joined from the Department by Mr. David Leach, assistant secretary, Mr. Jim Walsh, principal officer, and Ms Deirdre King-De Montano, assistant principal. As the Cathaoirleach mentioned, I am also joined by Professor Bobby Smyth, Dr. Sarah Morton and Ms Mellany McLoone. It is great to be here today to talk to members about the national drugs strategy.

Dr. Morton is the chair of the national drugs strategy steering group and is overseeing the drafting of the next national drugs strategy. The role of the steering committee is to provide oversight, guidance and expert advice on the content of the strategy. Mr. Joe O'Neill is also here today. He is chairman of the Western Region Drug and Alcohol Task Force and is a member of the national drugs strategy reference group. Membership of the reference group includes people with lived or living experience of drug use, taking account of the voices of Travellers, migrants and individuals who have had experience of the criminal justice system.

I wish to reaffirm the programme for Government commitment to a health-led approach to drug use. The national drugs strategy will focus on this and deepen the health-led approach by addressing the enormous changes we have seen in drug use since the last strategy was drafted in 2016. I am very mindful, as are my colleagues in the Department, of the fact that we are looking at ten years since the previous drugs strategy. In the intervening period, there have been a lot of changes and challenges. It is important to draw on the findings of the independent evaluation of the previous strategy in order to support the design of an integrated, equitable and evidence-based response to drug use that is responsive to emerging trends and aligned with national priorities and international best practice. Our consultations with stakeholders included individuals and families with lived and living experience of drug use which will contribute to the development of the successor strategy. I have shared a report on these consultations with the committee.

As members will be aware, since the emergence of the drug problem in the 1980s, Irish society has been transformed.

This has shaped patterns of drug use. We have seen huge growth, increased urbanisation and technological advances, which have contributed to changing social dynamics and drug trends. Where drug use in the 1980s was often associated with heroin in specific urban communities, today’s landscape is far more complicated. In the decade since the previous strategy was drafted, drug use in Ireland has evolved significantly. Over 13,000 cases of problem drug use received treatment in 2024, an increase of 50% since 2017. The increased demand for treatment is from all regions, all age groups, men and women, people with and without children, those in employment as well as the unemployed. There has been an increase in the availability of new psychoactive substances and designer stimulants, which presents new challenges for public health. The consumption of drugs has changed, with cocaine now the most treated drug. The settings in which drugs are used have changed and there is higher rate of polydrug use. There is greater recognition of the impact of drug use on mental health, especially among our young people and the need for community-based, health-led approaches. I believe that is why the Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use stated, "The stark reality of drug use in Ireland today means that there is no time to be lost" and recommended that the new national drugs strategy be drafted and agreed urgently. The recommendations set a target date of 2024 for its completion.

I am committed to a collaborative approach. This was reflected in the debate on the Private Members' motion last week. As I said in that debate, this is not about politics; it is about us all finding the best way to meet this enormous challenge. This committee has heard powerful evidence of the experience of those faced with addiction and that of their families. I am determined that this lived experience will inform the next national drugs strategy. Despite the urgency of the task, as Minister of State, I want to ensure that we move forward in co-operation as much as possible. It is very important to me as Minister of State to work with the committee together in co-operation. That is my aim going forward. Therefore, when the draft strategy comes before me at the end of the year, I will send it to this committee for consultation. I hope the committee will include it in its deliberations and once its report is complete, I will review any relevant recommendations. I aim to have a final version completed and published before the summer recess. We will not agree on everything but I hope we will work together where we can.

I want the new strategy to build on policies introduced in recent years. We saw the opening of Ireland’s first supervised injection facility at the end of last year. I am happy to report that the facility has assisted over 1,000 individual clients who have made over 7,500 visits. There were over 120 successful interventions to prevent a fatal overdose. The review of the 18-month pilot will inform decisions on whether to continue with this facility and open new ones in other areas, including the possibility of mobile facilities. We have been talking about this within the Department. A core component of the health-led approach is the diversion of people in possession of drugs from the criminal justice system to health services. I am committed to commencing the health diversion scheme that the Minister for justice and I have agreed will be implemented on an administrative basis. An Garda Síochána and the Director of Public Prosecutions are finalising the operational details. Once we have signed off on this, we will commence it at a national level. This is imminent; we are nearly there to sign off on this. We believe it will be really soon. The Health Research Board will monitor its implementation and a full evaluation will be completed after the first 12 months. We will evaluate it once it gets up and running. We will know more after the first 12 months. On top of other alternatives to coercive sanctions introduced in recent years, I hope this scheme will build the confidence of the criminal justice system and of society more widely in the value of a health-led approach.

In 2024, total drug-related public expenditure was €338 million. Of this, €174 million related to health expenditure. In the subsequent budgets in 2025 and 2026, the Department of Health allocated a further €7 million in recurring funding to enhance the provision of drug services with €1.9 million ring-fenced for community-based services. The Department’s emphasis is on developing services for under-served populations, problem alcohol use, dual diagnosis, family support and people in recovery. In all, there are over 610 drug and family support services provided by the HSE around the country. That is important. It is an issue we worked on with the Department; I am very mindful that while we concentrate on cities, we also concentrate on rural areas where we have all the services. Section 39 organisations also provide those services, with 280 projects supported by the task forces, which are at the front line in responding to the impact of drugs on local communities. Additional funding has included resources for the DRIVE initiative on drug-related violence and intimidation. In addition, I am developing a new programme with three-year funding to support community resilience against drugs that task forces and other community organisations can apply for. I expect to announce details of this programme shortly. We are working on this at the moment within the Department. I hope to announce it as soon as possible.

The issue of problem drug use unites us all. As members are aware, there is not a village or town throughout the country that has not been impacted by drug use. Addiction does not discriminate on class, geography, colour or creed. Ireland is a very different country to when we first faced this issue nearly 50 years ago. The types of problem we face are in some ways very different, but the scale is no less. Working together, I hope we can face them. That is what the Department, the HSE, all of us today and colleagues from different areas to do. We are talking about people's lives. We want to make sure we all have an input into our new drugs strategy.

I thank the Minister of State for her contribution. We will now to turn to questions from members. Colleagues have seven minutes. Questions should be directed to the Minister of State. First is Senator Ní Chuilinn.

I thank the Minister of State for being here and all the witnesses for coming in. I am encouraged to hear the Minister of State is committed to a collaborative approach. I think we all are. My questions are not political; they are definitely based in common sense. On the drugs strategy, we are about three months into a nine-month term where we will have a report at the end. Is there a pause for thought in terms of waiting? We have a lot of witnesses we would still like to hear from in the committee. Those witnesses are really important. They bring the lived experience we have all talked about and the Minister of State mentioned in her opening statement. Is there an opportunity to pause the draft and wait until we have finished our report so the people who have yet to come in feel heard?

We are doing that. We are going to have our own first draft in December or early January. We will then give the draft to the committee and work in collaboration with the committee. With the Department and working with the committee, we want the final draft done in June. We will work with the committee. We will give the committee our draft and go to publish at the end of June or July. We want it published before the summer recess. We will go ahead with ours but will hold off until we work with the committee for the few months. Mr. Leach might want to comment.

The plan is for us to finish the draft in December or January. We will send it to the committee. We will continue on with work in the background if there are urgent actions arising from the strategy, as the committee would expect us to carry do. The previous drugs committee made it clear it wanted us to move on with the work in its interim report. Similarly, the Citizens' Assembly on Drug Use wanted us to move on with the strategy but the Minister has prevailed upon us to include the committee and send it the draft report once it is completed for members to reflect to on it. As I understand it, the committee will produce its report in June. We can then take the committee's report and incorporate it and the committee's recommendations in the final version of the national drugs strategy. I think there were two recommendations in the interim report. They have been reflected in the strategy process so far.

Our report will be taken into consideration.

Absolutely.

Yes, of course.

That is important.

That is what we are doing.

The reason for the Minister of State's presence today began during a meeting here on 2 October, when a lot of the witnesses expressed disquiet at the fact that the steering group had been made up without some of the witnesses, key stakeholders and community groups that were working on the ground and had that lived experience. What is the difference between a steering group and a reference group?

I will take that. We have the chair of the steering group and a member of the reference group here so, unfortunately, they cannot address the committee. I will explain the difference. The steering group is a group of experts, with expert knowledge of the area, that are brought together. Three Departments are on it. There are also two agencies, the HSE and the Health Research Board, HRB; two international experts, the former head of the European Union Drugs Agency and the UK recovery champion; and two members of civil society. They drive the process in line with best practice. They are-----

I am so sorry, but I am caught for time. What exactly is "civil society"? Is that people with lived experience or is it community groups who are working on the ground? What does "civil society" mean?

In this case, it is people who are providing drugs services and people who have lived experience of drugs services. Two people with direct experience of providing drugs services and receiving drugs services are on the group.

How were they chosen?

We went through a stakeholder identification process and they were the two people we identified. We had a very rigorous process. A total of 241 people attended our consultations. We had to distil that down and we identified two. We recognised that we needed to have more than just a small group of people on the steering group.

We then constructed the reference group, which is a grassroots group of people who provide services across the whole country. A number of those people have lived experience, are involved in family support services or providing services in rural areas, or are in community-based projects. Some are working with Travellers or migrants. We brought them all together to sense-check and reflect what was coming from the steering group. Mr. O'Neill, the chair of the task force, is on the group. It was to sense-check what was coming from the steering group with the experience of the grassroots organisations.

Has Mr. Walsh got examples of where the reference group might have changed a policy, procedure or direction the Department was going in? What is the power of the reference group? Has it had a voice?

I will pass that over to my colleague, Ms King-De Montano, who has convened and attended the meetings of the reference group. She will address that question of discussion and engagement.

I can give one example, although it is still a process and the draft strategy is still in development. I can say that the family support network representation has brought family to the centre and to the fore in the draft documentation we have been preparing.

I have another question in relation to the recent restrictions on HHC cannabinoids. Producers of these psychoactive synthetic drugs are really clever. They keep reinventing the wheel and are catching up. Is the Department happy with the thresholds and the way that issue has gone, even since the announcement by the Minister recently?

Absolutely. As the Senator knows, HHC is now an illegal drug. Drugs are evolving, which the committee will know from all its meetings. With everything evolving, we are very mindful of the changes within drugs and things that are happening in the country. We need to work more on how we make things move quicker. It is our aim within the drugs strategy that we move quicker in making a drug an illegal substance. That is part of what we want to do going forward and will be part of what will happen within the new drugs strategy.

Senator Fitzpatrick has switched with Deputy O'Connor.

I thank the Minister of State, her departmental officials and the other participants. We appreciate their presence and, more importantly, the work they are all doing.

The Minister of State's opening statement very clearly and eloquently acknowledged the changed landscape for drug use, drug abuse and addiction in our society. It is very dynamic. We all accept that. HHC was referenced, and it is always changing and dynamic. There is a challenge we and the Minister of State collectively have. I like her language and the collaborative and collective approach. None of us has a magic wand and we need to work together because this is a huge problem. It is a public health problem that is destroying lives, families and communities. None of us can accept that. The Minister of State acknowledged that there was a greater need for a greater community-based, health-led approach and that access to supports and services should be based where people needed them or close to that need. It is important that the lived experience be incorporated in the next strategy. It is heartening to hear how these stakeholder and reference groups are incorporating that.

It will help us to have the draft strategy in December. Not to be argumentative with Senator Ní Chuilinn, but having that draft in December will help inform the hearings we will have in the first half of next year because we will have a sense of how the strategy is potentially changing and will have witnesses before us in those first six months. We can use the draft strategy, not just to come back to Department, but to inform those hearings. That will be useful and powerful. I thank the Minister of State for giving us that opportunity. I share her urgency to have a new strategy. It needs to be done. We need to move on. I am not suggesting that nothing is happening on the ground. Great work is taking place every single day, but it is important that that work be guided by a well-researched and well-designed strategy.

I would like to hear a bit more from the Minister of State, if possible, on the health diversion scheme the Department is working on with the Department of justice, which will play a huge part in that. There will be many elements to a health-led approach, including education, resilience and prevention, but I am very interested to know how those discussions on the diversion element are going. Is there support from the Department of justice, An Garda Síochána and those who will have to be intrinsically involved in its implementation? How will they balance the challenge between recognising that there are real public health concerns with the real need and demand in society to address drug-related crime? Will the Minister of State share with the committee how the work on the health diversion scheme is going?

As the Senator knows, the Government is committed to diverting people in the process of drugs to the health service. That is our aim. Recommendation No. 17 from the citizens' assembly stated that drug possession should remain illegal. Our health diversion scheme is in line with this but, again, we are waiting - I think it is imminent - to hear from the Garda on the health diversion scheme. The DPP has also worked with us on it. Under our own remit, we have recruited nine SAOR practitioners around the country. We as a Department are ready. We have nine support, ask and assess, offer assistance and refer, SAOR, practitioners around the country to work on this health-led approach with those people who are found with a small amount of drugs. They will lead that health-led approach. We are waiting for this. Mr. Walsh might want to come in on this because he has been very much involved in it as well. We feel it will happen quite quickly.

There are a few things. An Garda Síochána is totally supportive of this. Former Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly, who is now the Commissioner, spoke before the previous committee. He said An Garda would support whatever the direction of Government is. That was really strong. It might be good to bring him back in again now that he is the top man, but I am sure he will repeat that. We have been working with colleagues in the Garda drugs bureau and they are completely supportive of the scheme.

There are two key things in terms of a sense of assurance. One is it is coming in on an administrative basis. The powers of the Garda are not being changed.

They were very keen that they would keep those powers. There is no change in that. The second thing may be a concern. It is at the discretion of An Garda by which people will be referred. We know that discretion can be fair and unfair. The thing here is that we want the maximum discretion, and we will monitor that discretion over the course of the year. If we find that one garda area is referring more than another, we will want to know why. If some groups are being referred less often than other groups, we will want to know why. We will have a very rigorous monitoring framework in place to track that almost live. We can see then if that discretion is being misused. There is a real common purpose here, politically between the Ministers and administratively with the DPP and An Garda Síochána. It has taken us longer than we wanted it to, but that is because when we have it, it will be well thought-out and the DPP and the Commissioner will be able to stand over it. We will have the best fit-for-purpose scheme that we can have in the Irish model.

Does Department anticipate that when we get a draft copy of the strategy, there will be detailed information on how that health diversion scheme will work?

Yes

It is hoped before that.

I thank the witnesses for their presentation. There is a real concern in Ireland around the shrinking space of civil society, especially community organisations, community development-led organisations and organisations that are willing to dissent, be critical, push back and call out policy when it is not working for particular communities. It is in that vein that I would like to ask the following questions. I do not see any reason the Minister of State would need to defer the questions. They are simple enough. Did the Minister of State, from a process perspective, make the decision to remove UISCE from the national oversight structures of the national drugs strategy? Was that her decision?

No, absolutely not. I thank the Senator for asking that. UISCE has come up quite regularly recently. As I said, and I think this is important-----

Can I ask who made the decision?

Just let me finish. What I can just say and what I said to the Department is that we have 610 services around the country-----

UISCE is a very particular service. Did she make the decision? No. Who made the decision? I am asking who make the decision. The Minister of State is the public representative. Legacy lies with her. She will be answerable to the electorate. I am asking if she made the decision. No. Who made the decision?

I can assure the Senator that we are working with everybody-----

No. I am not asking that.

We agreed this. We are all working together.

Let the Minister answer.

I am sorry.

They are my questions, Senator Fitzpatrick. They are my questions. I want specific questions. Who made the decision?

As the Senator said, I am the Minister of State.

Yes.

I am the Minister of State with responsibility for every service around the country. Every service is important to me.

Sorry-----

Nobody is going to get anything if we are talking over each other.

Every service is important to me and-----

I am not asking about services

-----what I am saying is we are working on that.

I am talking about the national oversight strategy.

It is paused at the moment.

Okay. There is no reference group.

It is paused at the moment. No, the Senator asked about the national oversight.

Can I interfere for one second? Nobody is hearing anything at the moment. Could Senator Ruane ask a question and let the Minister of State answer?

I did not say the oversight committee; I said the national oversight structures. The structure has changed. Did the Minister of State make the decision to remove CityWide and UISCE from oversight structures?

No.

There is no oversight structure because the Minister of State has paused it. Key voices have been removed. Has she removed them or has somebody else removed them?

Is the Senator telling me the other 610 agencies are not key voices as well? Sorry, let us look at-----

No-----

I work with everybody.

Senator Ruane, can you ask a-----

There is a very clear process that I am asking the Minister of State. I am not talking about the exclusion-----

I am telling the Senator that I have 610 services.

I am not asking about the exclusion; I am asking about her decision-making. I am asking who makes decisions. It is the Minister of State who makes the decisions? Is she saying that she decided that CityWide and UISCE are not on the national oversight structures?

If I could be helpful, Mr. Walsh went through the process by which we arrived at the steering group and the reference group. Of course the Minister of State did not make the individual decisions to include or not include individual-----

Of course the Minister of State with responsibility did not make the decisions.

I am sorry, Senator, I was not finished.

Senator Ruane, do you have a second question?

I did not ask Mr. Leach a question.

Could I clarify something on the national oversight structures? When we came to the end of 2024, we paused the oversight structures. They are paused. They will be reconvened when our strategy is back up again. We have not set aside, undermined or-----

There is a current strategy being drafted with a paused oversight of a national drug strategy. Can someone explain that to me? The national oversight committee in relation to the drugs strategy is not currently involved with the drafting of a national drugs strategy. Why?

At the moment, as we said, we are working within the different groups. We are working with the draft, we are working with the Senator and the people she represents-----

In all fairness, the Minister of State is not working with us. She has given us four weeks in June. She has said she wants to collaborate.

I do.

The committee report from this committee is due in June. The Minister of State is saying she is going to launch her final strategy before summer recess.

I hope to by the recess.

The Minister of State expects us to draft a report and for her to amend her strategy in line with this committee in four weeks. She wants us to turn that around in four weeks.

We are here to work with the committee. We want to make sure that everyone is included. That is absolutely the way going forward. Our first draft will be ready at Christmas. We are working with the committee in collaboration-----

How can the Minister of State work with us in collaboration? She could have an interim report, which is different to this, which is a paused draft. An interim report is a different thing that we had in 2009-2016. That is what the committee has called for, for real collaboration and co-operation. Does the Minister of State expect us to be able to do to the work of this committee, develop our own report, see our own witnesses and somehow form a view on her strategy at the same time as that work?

We will work together.

How?

We will just all work together like we are today-----

Tell me how we will work together.

We will work with the committee, with the witnesses and with the concerns that they have today. We will talk about them in the Department.

What does that mean?

We will come back to the Senator.

Does Senator Ruane have another question?

Just to clarify, the committee's timeframe is June. That is six months.

Yes, but the Department wants to launch a strategy four weeks-----

The Minister of State is not launching-----

I am-----

She said before the summer recess. She said there would be a final draft before the summer recess.

The committee will have six months to consider the draft-----

That is July. The Department wants us to have four weeks-----

No, six months.

Our report is not due until June.

Yes.

How can we pre-empt our recommendations to their strategy, when our report will not be done until June? It is not six months.

We will wait until then.

It is actually not six months. For us, it is four weeks. Our work finishes in June.

In the meantime, we can work with the committee on what it is working and see if we can get the process quickly. We have not had a drugs strategy in ten years.

Hang on a minute. Our work is complete in June. Our work is not complete in December.

What exactly is the Senator looking for?

The Senator's time is up.

What we have looked for before, which is an interim report-----

We are moving on to the next-----

We have had it before, so that we can actually have this work, which was part of the democratic process, reflected in the national drugs strategy.

We are moving on to our next contributor. Deputy Ann Graves is stepping in for Senator Nicole Ryan.

I thank the Minister of State and officials for attending today and for their presentation. Some of it cuts right across the work that we are doing on the committee. I will go through everything and they can answer all my questions at the end as they will overlap. The serious increase in drug use across the State was highlighted - 50% - but the funding for the task forces and community based projects do not match that increase.

Can the Department clarify the funding situation relating to local and regional drug and alcohol task forces? This is something I have raised a couple of times because, according to the budget figures, the core funding - I am talking about the core funding and the moneys allocated every year - has been cut by 25%, from €11.6 million to €8.7 million. These are the figures that were in the budget. Funding was also made available to develop addiction services outside Dublin. Bad and all as it is in Dublin for people trying to get into services, it is virtually impossible for those who are outside the capital, particularly those in rural areas. I have met representatives of many of the community-based services, and there is nothing available for them. What is the plan to develop community-based services outside the Dublin area?

Focusing on the drugs strategy, on which there has been a great deal of discussion, I met a number of community representatives, community projects, service providers, etc. They have been before the committee as well. Their big concern is that they are not being consulted. They not involved, even indirectly. I welcome the fact that we are holding off on the publication of the strategy, but we need genuine consultation with this committee and with the certain sectors that feel they have been excluded. When the Department gives us an initial draft, which it said we would have in December, the committee will not have its work done. Will that also go to relevant sectors that also have an input? That is really important.

My next question relates to some of what Senator Ruane said. Our work should really be continuing in parallel. We will not have a draft until the summer, but our work will continue. We will see the Department's draft but, at that stage, we will still not have met some of the stakeholders that may be included in the draft. Will there be second and third drafts as our work progresses? Can the drafts on the strategy run in parallel with the work we are doing? We do not want the Department to pre-empt that work or what the outcome of it will be, but we would like to have an input the whole way through. We all want the same thing. We all want a resolution, and we need to work together.

Absolutely. We are here to work together.

The Minister of State says she will make funding available for task forces.

Yes.

Can she clarify how much will be made available to the DRIVE project and to the task force? Money should be allocated directly to task forces. They already have drug-related intimidation groups in place, but the Minister of State is proposing pitting the task forces and community organisations against each other.

I wrote to the Minister of State a couple of months ago and requested a meeting. I would appreciate a response.

I compliment the task forces on the work they do. We have 24 of them throughout the country. As the Deputy stated, they do absolutely excellent and important work. There have not been any cuts in the budget. There have not been cuts to the task forces, but we are reviewing them. We are working with the HSE to look at the structure and how we work together with those 24 task forces. That is so important because the work they do within communities is vital. That is something we are working on.

Going back to the draft, if people want to make submissions or work with the drugs strategy we are doing now, that is absolutely fine. If you have people who want to talk to us or who feel excluded, the Department will meet with them. That is important. We are here to work with everybody. I need that to go out today. We are not excluding anyone. If people want to meet with us, we will certainly meet with them. If people want to put in submissions in respect of the first draft, Mr. Walsh, Mr. Leach and I will work on those in the Department.

DRIVE is another absolutely fabulous scheme that operates nationwide. It is about confidentiality regarding personal support and about families who want support to allow them go to the Garda. It is all confidential. There have not been any cuts to DRIVE either, and €250,000 will go to DRIVE annually.

As stated, there have not been any cuts in respect of the task forces. We have to look at the stream of funding. We are looking at that nationally. As I said, we will work with people. I will certainly meet with the Deputy before Christmas, if not in the next week or two.

On the budgets, approximately €28 million is going to task forces. The spending between the HSE and the Department directly on drugs services is approximately €170 million in total. The €28 million supports approximately 280 individual services. There are 610 in total across the country. A lot of it is done through grant-aid agreements and service level agreements with the HSE, but it is all recurring funding. It is there every year and it should be there next year. Obviously, service needs in communities change from time to time, and services have to change to reflect that. The HSE would negotiate with them locally.

I am very hopeful. It is important for us, at the end of the day, to have evidence and a strong strategy to which everyone has contributed. If we can get cross-party and political agreement on what needs to happen, we have a very solid footing to seek further funding into the future. That is really important. Since I entered this role a couple of months ago, my biggest concern has been the attempt to roll out these services in every area of the country. The nature of the problem is no longer confined to certain communities or places. It is right across the country.

Could the Department send me a breakdown in respect of the funding? The budget is definitely not clear, and I am getting a lot of questions about it.

We certainly will.

We will get that to the Deputy.

I thank the Minister of State and the officials for attending. There are also officials from the HSE and the steering and reference group present. We might have an engagement with them at another time, but my questions will very much be for the Minister of State. At the outset, I welcome the sentiment to the effect that the Department wants to collaborate with our committee.

I have very real concerns about the timing of the publication of the draft report, about the final report and about the incorporation of our recommendations. My sense is that we probably need to see the draft and then try to engage with the Minister of State and the Department as to whether the part of the summer prior to the recess is a realistic and desirable deadline. We want the strategy to be right and not anything otherwise.

Of course.

I am very frustrated and disappointed that the oversight group has been suspended and that the three national networks of UISCE, Family Addiction Recovery Ireland and CityWide are being excluded. I heard what the Minister of State said. I very much share that view. We do not want to play politics with these issues. They are far too important, and people's lives are at stake. There is an element of politics being played with some of these groups. It is important to say that there is a real frustration among these groups, which have been on the scene for many years advocating and working in this space long. They were there long before the Minister of State and I ever spoke about these issues. At the very least, they deserve some respect.

There is some confusion about the current Government position. I want to get an insight into the Minister of State's thinking with regard to the implementation of the recommendations of the citizens' assembly. We are aware of the Government policy regarding the health diversion scheme, which, I think, was first proposed in 2017. The Government is finally getting around to doing that, which is all well and good. I want to be very clear on this, and the citizens' assembly was very clear that, after many hours of deliberation, it ruled out health diversion as a recommendation. Last week, the Minister of State made the point during a Private Members' debate in the Dáil that the health diversion approach is in keeping with a recommendation from the citizens' assembly. Recommendation 17 from the citizen's assembly refers to diversion, dissuasion and decriminalisation. Will the Minister of State indicate whether she is just talking about health diversion?

If there is going to be a draft strategy over the next few weeks, the Minister of State will have some sense of whether it is just health diversion or whether the Government plans to go beyond that and look at decriminalisation.

I thank the Deputy for her question. It is important that we recognise the work of the groups the Deputy mentioned: FARI, CityWide and UISCE. They have done great work. That needs to be clear. We appreciate, as the Deputy said, that they have put a lot of work into this over a long time, and we really appreciate the work that they have done. It is important that we work together. I see where the Deputy is coming from. The health diversion scheme will be a health-led approach. That is what will be in the draft strategy. As the Deputy asked me, it is a health-led approach.

To be clear about how we define what a comprehensive health-led approach is, when I read the citizens' assembly report, it talks about diversion, dissuasion and decriminalisation. Can I take it that when the Minister of State defines a health-led approach, it is just health diversion?

It is just health diversion.

The Minister of State would see the stance of Government being at odds with the recommendations of the citizens' assembly.

From reading it myself, and I will go back and check it again, the citizens' assembly, in recommendation 17, said that drug possession should remain illegal and our health diversion scheme is in line with this. I will double-check. I am Minister of State with responsibility for health and well-being, so I can only look at health and well-being. That is within my remit. It is something that I can come back to the Deputy on.

There would be a strong view among many of us that decriminalisation has to be an intrinsic part of that comprehensive health-led approach. I think that conversation has to continue. As the Minister of State is in the Department of Health, I want to ask about the Department's approach to HHC. This is a drug that has been on the scene since 2022, mainly consumed by teenagers. It has clear links to psychosis, and yet when I asked the HSE in April what plans it had to roll out an awareness campaign of the impacts of HHC, we were told that the HSE had not been asked nor resourced to commence an awareness campaign. We asked a follow-up question and it was said that prohibition or outlawing of the drug would have to be put in place first. That happened in July and a campaign has now commenced. It seems to me that, three years since this drug came into the country, the HSE is wildly behind the curve, that it has to outlaw a drug first to then put in place the health awareness campaign. Should that not be the first port of call for the Department of Health, that when a drug comes into the country, we accept there are drugs in every community in this country and the awareness piece is done first, and then, depending on the Government of the day, decide whether we want to outlaw it? It is critical to create awareness first, accepting that it will be in communities.

I totally agree with the Deputy. There have been challenges. She is right that we need to get it out quicker and have an awareness campaign. That will be part of the drugs strategy going forward so that we are not in a position again where something like HHC would take so long. That is factual. I totally agree with the Deputy.

I agree totally. It took far too long to make this drug illegal. I agree with the Deputy that it should not have to be illegal for the HSE or Department of Health to conduct a public awareness campaign. All I can say is that since the Minister of State came into office, she has been frustrated by how long it took. It was begun by the previous Minister of State, who is actually with us. One of the benefits of the steering group and the way the strategy is being devised is that the Departments of justice, Health and the Taoiseach are all together on the same group and will own all of the recommendations. It is hoped we will get a recommendation from the strategy that allows for a change in the law that will allow us to much more easily move to ban drugs. As the Deputy rightly said, those sorts of drugs will pop up more and more often. Professor Smyth, who is with us, has much more experience than I have in talking about them. We will be much more agile in how we approach drugs in the future. It is the general world we are living in.

I thank all the people from the Department and HSE, and all the other groups that are here, for the work that they have done, not just in a short period of time but over many years. Many issues that I wanted to raise have already been raised, so I will not go over them. On the supervised injection facility, the Minister of State talked about a 12-month review. I understand there were to be three reviews, one after six months, one after 12 months and one after 18 months. Was the report after six months completed? Will the report after 12 months be made available to the committee? One issue that I noted is that the Minister of State's statement sets out that more than 1,000 people have used the facility. I know it took nine years from the time we first talked about it to actually getting it opened, but 1,000 people is a lot of people.

An issue that I have come across recently is maternity services for people who have drug addiction problems and the baby is delivered. I know of one instance where the child was two before the grandparents even realised that there was a child. The child is now in the care of the grandparents and obviously has huge challenges. What are the Department and HSE doing about cases like that where a baby is born and there are serious challenges about future care?

The third thing I want to touch on is the day centre in Cork. As the Minister of State knows, we do not have a supervised injection facility. We have more than 600 homeless people in the city. They have shelters to go to at night. Not all use them but the vast majority do. They have no place to go during the day. A building was identified in the last 18 months. I am concerned that that may not be available unless it is clearly set out that funding is available to develop that as a day centre. It is about co-ordinating all of the services from the HSE. My understanding is that the HSE is already spending over €2 million on support staff who are providing care for many of those people who are homeless. Could I get an answer on those three issues?

First of all, I thank the Deputy for his work and dedication. I have had many a talk with him and know how committed he is and how hard he has worked. It is important to thank him for that. As he knows, the Department of Health supports the health hub proposal and is committed to working with the HSE to secure funding through the capital plan. That is absolutely correct. That is what we are doing. I know there are issues and that we are working with Cork County Council, which is part of this too. We are working with the HSE. We are committed to funding, through the Department. We will come back to the Deputy. I know he has come to me about this several times. I assure him that we are committed to that through our own Department.

It was important that he brought up the gender specifics. We are seeing that women are facing particular challenges, greater care responsibility, stigma and fear of losing their children. I know that Dr. Morton, who was here today, would have spoken about this. We are really prioritising this in our drugs strategy. We know this has to happen. We are mindful of women and we need to make sure that supports are there for them. We will work with the Deputy on that and on the drugs strategy.

It appears to me that the supports are not there adequately enough. I am concerned because it is not just about the women and fathers of children who may also be addicted. In the case I am dealing with, both were addicted. A child is a totally new party who is then in that scenario where there are not adequate supports. I am a bit concerned. I thought we had progressed on that issue but it appears that we have not.

Perhaps the Deputy has cases. It will be in the new drugs strategy. He is right that there are concerns. We are working within the drugs strategy and services on what we can do.

On the relationship with maternity units around the country, there are 19 maternity units. Is a structure in place for a particular unit to be able to get on to the HSE to co-ordinate support for the parents of that child and to support the child?

There are drug midwives in the maternity hospitals. We will look at that but there are drug midwives in the hospitals.

I am not concerned about the people in the hospitals. Rather, I am concerned about the period after the child is born-----

Okay. We will have to address that.

-----and what structures we have in place to deal with that.

We will definitely be looking at that.

It is not just about the Department of Health; it is also about social services and a whole range of areas, such as local authorities with regard to housing, etc.

It is a collaborative approach.

Maybe someone could come back to me on that.

Yes. We will come back to the Deputy in that regard.

Just on the report from the supervised injection facility-----

Yes, we have done the assessment.

-----will that be made available to the committee? If so, what kind of timescale are we talking about for that to be made available?

We received the evaluation report after six months and we are happy to share that with the Deputy. That was done by a research group on behalf of the HSE. The next report will be after 18 months. There are just two evaluation reports - an interim one after six months and then the final report after 18 months.

From the operation of the supervised injection facilities to date, are there more supports that we should put in place to help the people who are using that facility to try to get them to work through the challenges they have, whether they are in relation to housing or other supports? Where are we in that regard?

As the Deputy is probably aware, the facility is based in Merchants Quay. One of the benefits of the 18-month period is that the service had to be tweaked and changed a bit in its first couple of months of operation. There were different things. We changed the opening hours and things like that to make sure it was operating to meet the needs of both the community and the people using it. As the Deputy is probably aware, it is in the Merchants Quay facility, so all of the services available in the Merchants Quay facility, whether they be needle exchange or supports from social workers, are all available to the users. Obviously, there is no compulsion for them to use those services. They engage with them if they wish.

What I am asking, however, is whether additional supports should be put in place, based on the information we have gathered to date and the fact that we are nearly 12 months through the system?

I ask that witnesses answer that question briefly.

We will look at the report in that regard and share it with the Deputy. The main support is that this is a low threshold service. It deals with people at their most vulnerable. Once they are in there, we can then move them on. Thanks to the Deputy, just 400 m up the road, we have now opened a residential service for people who are homeless and in need of treatment. We have now increased that service to 63 beds and a further increase is planned.

A total of 37 beds are yet to be funded. I ask that funding be put in place for them.

That is an important intervention, Deputy Sherlock.

We have 12 beds for next year's budget. They are on a phased basis. That was part of the agreement. Another 12 beds will go in next year.

It is about the other 25 beds then because lives will be saved.

Absolutely. We are working on that.

The Government paid for it to be built, but it must fund it.

I thank Deputy Sherlock. It was an important intervention nonetheless. I call Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú.

Tá fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir anseo. In fairness, there has been a significant conversation on the need for a more sensible approach. If we are talking about working alongside the committee and its timeline in doing a detailed body of work, it is absolutely vital that all the stakeholders who are lined up are dealt with. I also share the worries of my colleagues, particularly when it comes to the likes of UISCE and CityWide. People would just assume they are feeding into any national drugs strategy. The fact that there is a feeling that they have been left outside the tent is not good in any way, shape or form. This needs to be addressed because we need to ensure we deal with lived experience.

In fairness, we have had multiple witnesses before the committee who have all stated that, on some level, we already know what we need to do but it is a matter of making sure that is in a plan. It is fair to say that this State has never taken it seriously, whether we are talking about addiction, the impact it is having on communities or all those ancillary issues. We all know the complex cases that we have dealt with have been made a lot worse by the prevalence of everything from cocaine, crack, benzos and anything else we can think of. We are even having a particular issue with nitrous oxide among young teenagers.

I will follow up on what Deputy Graves said about the need for a detailed breakdown of the budget because it is hard to see anything other than cuts from the year before. We have not seen any major increase in funding for the regional drugs task forces. If we go back to 2008, that was at the beginning of the austerity period related to the banking crisis. Everyone will say the drugs task forces did what they could with the limited amount of funds they had in order to keep the show on the road. It was baling twine to keep the engine going. I have not seen anything to indicate we have made a full assessment of what the need is, encompassing addiction services and everything else. I do not believe the full conversation has been had. What engagement has the Minister of State had with the senior Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill; with the Department of children in the context of early intervention supports; with the Department of justice and An Garda Síochána; and with the Department of housing regarding local authorities? Even if people are lucky enough, by hook or crook, to get through addiction services, they are generally left afterwards in the same place where they had the drug addiction, with drug debt following them and no holistic supports in place. We talk about a multi-agency approach, but I am yet to see it. Where are we in this regard?

I thank the Deputy for his questions. We will give the Deputy a breakdown of the budget. With regard to the task forces, as I announced, we will give more funding to the 24 task forces. Again, it is about the services and the strategy on how we look at that. I have been working with the Department of justice but it is an all-encompassing approach, as the Deputy said, ranging from homelessness to ensuring that, when someone goes into a service, there are services available when they come out. That is something we are mindful of. We have to address that within the strategy.

In respect of housing, while it does not fall under my remit, I am very mindful of the need to have the supports in place for people, who have been on the housing list and gone into a service, when they come out. It is about keeping them on the housing lists and ensuring they are being looked at for housing.

I will definitely come back to the Deputy, as I said, with the budget breakdown. As the Deputy said, we need to look at everything, from justice to education and housing, because this is going to be about all of us working together within this new strategy.

There should be a particular emphasis on the Department of children because we know if we can get supports into families at an early stage, we can avoid a lot of the issues. As much as drugs are present everywhere, the worst impact is obviously in disadvantaged areas.

That is true.

It is where poverty crosses over with intergenerational trauma and all the rest of it. I will repeat my point. The services we have at the minute are nowhere near touching the base of the problem, as it were. We have not been serious about it yet in any way. I would like to think that the national drugs strategy would, at least, be a strategy that takes this into account and looks at what the need is. As regards follow-up resources, while I cannot say I am hopeful at this point, I would be happy enough if we were having a real conversation and we had a real needs assessment and a decent strategy. We could then fight for the resources that are required.

We are doing an audit of services. I understand the issue. It is important that we have structures in place through the different Departments. In my remit of health and well-being within the drugs strategy, I have definitely been working on that issue. It is then about working with other agencies and Departments, whether in the area of children or education, because it is important that all of the groups-----

Is that happening to a sufficient-----

There is an audit under way. We are working on it.

Does that audit take those other Departments into account?

That is what we are looking at.

What is the timeline on that?

We are still on the first draft. We will have the first draft by Christmas and we will issue the Deputy with a copy of that draft. After that, as we said, we will take that draft and the committee's recommendations and work together in collaboration.

That is what we want to do.

Is the Department open to an element of flexibility, so we can ensure that-----

Absolutely. We might not agree on everything, but-----

It is not about that. It is about ensuring that one thing informs the other.

Absolutely. It has to be that way.

I thank the Deputy. I think it is now time for my own questions.

I was very brief. I thought I should be congratulated on that.

He was.

We were all shocked.

On the Deputy’s point about interdepartmental collaboration, that is at the core of the citizens' assembly. Its 36 recommendations were across government. We have done a process in the Department of Health where we have gone to seven Government Departments and the HSE with the recommendations and asked what they are doing and what is their response. We are going to incorporate that into our strategy, so it will genuinely be whole-of-government. That is the mandate of the citizens' assembly. It did not------

I accept that but we have all made recommendations in our life and we have not always seen them through.

That is what we need to deliver in the strategy now.

I was not that brief in the end.

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and for joining us today.

In the Minister of State’s engagement with several members including Deputy Ó Murchú, as well as in her opening statement, she said the committee and the Department were not going to agree on everything. Is there anything in particular that stands out?

No. We all want to work together. The committee might not agree with parts of our draft. What we are saying is, we want to work with the committee and that is why we have said that when we get the first draft at Christmas we will issue it to the committee. We will work collaboratively with the committee for the few months. As Mr. Walsh said, it is all of us now working through the citizens' assembly's recommendation, the Grant Thornton report or whatever.

I will defend my time a little bit if that is okay.

I apologise.

That is absolutely fine. One of the things we can agree on is the citizens' assembly was the most comprehensive evaluation of drug policy and drug reality in the history of this State. In relation to what the Minister of State spoke about earlier, what is her understanding of recommendation 17?

My understanding is the citizens' assembly in recommendation 17 said that drug possession should remain illegal. Our health diversion scheme is in line with this. Deputy Sherlock said her understanding is different, so-----

Recommendation 17 of the citizens' assembly states, “The State should introduce a comprehensive health-led response to possession of drugs”. It goes on to quite a substantial explanatory narrative, which begins, “Under a ‘Comprehensive health-led’ approach, the State would respond to drug use and misuse primarily as a public health issue rather than as a criminal justice issue.” There is a plethora of things after that but, in the understanding of the Minister of State and her Department officials, does that mean decriminalisation of the drug user?

I am going with the health-led approach. As I said, that is will be what we will be going with, with the diversion of the scheme. We will be going with the health-led approach.

That will maintain a criminal justice overhang.

We are working with the Garda now. It is not about making drugs legal. Sometimes there has been-----

Absolutely not. That is not the-----

There has been a little bit of confusion over the different talks. We are working with the Garda. We have nine SAOR practitioners around the country ready to go. We are just waiting to get this signed. We will work very closely with An Garda Síochána on this.

The recommendation actually does take in a kind of misconception that is not being put forward by the committee or the Department. It states:

While possession of controlled drugs would remain illegal, people found in possession of illicit drugs for personal use would be afforded, first and foremost, extensive opportunities to engage voluntarily with health-led services.

I have two questions. In the first instance, how can we enact the policy of decriminalisation against the drug user while maintaining a criminal sanction overhang? If we are moving to an alternative policy, how are we going to cater for "extensive opportunities"? How is that going to be measured?

We are engaging with An Garda Síochána and the Department of justice, and we have spoken with them about how we will operate. The health diversion scheme will be evaluated from the very start. With sanctions, it will be at a garda’s discretion to-----

We are moving away from the recommendation of the citizens' assembly, though. The recommendation of the citizens' assembly does not refer to this being at the discretion of a garda. Rather, it recommended a comprehensive health-led approach to drugs with extensive opportunities to engage with voluntary and health-led services. It also talked about a comprehensive health-led response to the possession of drugs for personal use. In the Department's understanding, can that be done while section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act remains in place?

Our understanding is that yes, it can be done while that section remains in place.

Through the deliberations of this committee, when we go through a very comprehensive understanding of the laws that exist in Ireland and where they might be different from other jurisdictions that enforce decriminalisation, will that be something the Department is open to taking into consideration, or has it already decided that section 3 will stay in place?

The Deputy will appreciate that, as civil servants, neither myself-----

No, I am asking the Minister of State.

This is new to us all, and it is very important. We need to go back to the reality here that we are talking about people's lives. We are doing a one-year trial on this and then we will have a huge review. It will be health-led in the sense that whoever is caught with a small possession of drugs will be helped through one of our SAOR practitioners. As I said, we have nine of them around the country. It will be health-led in that extent. I am not saying this will not bring challenges or predicting the extent to which we will get it right, but we want to get it right. We want to give people the chance and we want to make sure that we look at this over the first year when it is signed off on by An Garda Síochána. We have to remember that we need to work with the Garda on this.

I do not doubt for a second the integrity the Minister of State is personally bringing to the issue. However, I question, probably on behalf of the committee collectively, how we might implement that particular policy. I fail to see how we can decriminalise the drug users who, as the Minister of State outlined, have for 40 years been destroyed by both the substance but also the overhanging sanction. I am not sure how we can do that while maintaining criminal sanctions over their heads.

As Mr. Walsh said earlier, the Garda is very much on board and wants to begin this. It is happy to do it. There is a confidence-building measure in this. Having put this in place for 12 months, let us see how it goes. We need to build everyone's confidence that this is a way forward and it can work. If we look back at the arc of all the drug strategies, going right back to 2001, there is a slow change from a very criminal-justice-focused approach to drug use, to the current health-led approach. This is another step in that direction. It is going to be very positive and we will see a lot of progress in the next 12 months, once that is up and running.

We all hope that is the case but the mandate of this committee was to respond to the recommendations of the citizens' assembly. We had the chairperson of the assembly in front of us a couple of months ago. He made it clear that his understanding was that people who use drugs for personal use would not be criminalised. That is very difficult to not step away from when we understand our own mandate. I fail to see how we will do that while maintaining section 3 of the criminal drug offences Act.

That is a fair point but, as the Cathaoirleach is aware, the debate is de jure decriminalisation de facto. What we are looking at, very clearly, is de facto decriminalisation - not penalising people for possession of drugs. That is what we are committed to do. As to how to navigate that, we have one way of doing it but we are very open to hearing the committee’s views. As we progress through the 12-month period, we will see where the barriers are and whether we need to tweak it.

I have to be as strict on myself on time as I am with everybody else.

It is very important for us to work together. I understand there will be challenges but myself and the Department, the HSE and all the different services are really committed to working together with the committee. That is the commitment I am giving today. We will work together.

Does the Minister of State agree that the strategy remains a draft until the work of this committee is completed?

I do, yes.

I thank the Minister of State.

I thank the Senators and Deputies.