Bertie Ahern
Question:2 Mr. B. Ahern asked the Taoiseach how the £10 million allocated to the Drugs Initiative in his Department will be spent. [4290/97]
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Drugs Initiative Allocation.
This initiative arises from a recommendation in the first report of the Ministerial Task Force on Measures to Reduce the Demand for Drugs. As the Deputy will be aware, the Government established this task force last July to review the existing arrangements for a co-ordinated response to drugs demand reduction and, in the light of that review, to identify for governmental action any changes or additional measures needed to provide a more effective response. The task force produced its first report last October, copies of which were laid before each House of the Oireachtas.
This report concentrated primarily on identifying the areas where the drugs problem, particularly opiate abuse, is most acute and preparing appropriate recommendations to deal with the problem in these areas. Arising from one of the recommendations in the report, local drugs task forces are being established in 12 areas in Dublin and in north Cork city. These task forces, comprising representatives of the statutory, voluntary and community sectors, will pull together the resources that are already available in these sectors to produce a more focused response to the drugs issue, in terms of treatment, rehabilitation and prevention.
The Government has allocated £10 million to support the implementation of development plans, which are being prepared by the task forces to build on existing programmes and services available in the priority areas.
As I already mentioned, the task forces will comprise representatives of the statutory, voluntary and community agencies. This partnership between agencies such as the Garda, the health board, the housing authority and local voluntary and community groups, which have been combating the problem for many years, is an important development. The sheer scale of the problem in some communities has led to a feeling of abandonment by the institutions of the State and wider society. Through their participation in the task forces, local communities can now contribute in a focused and tangible way towards tackling the drugs scourge in their areas. Understandably, the bringing on board of community groups and organisations involved a wide consultative process which is now almost completed and the vast majority of the task forces have commenced the work of preparing service development plans for their areas.
In endorsing the recommendations in the first report of the ministerial task force, the Government also set aside £3 million to implement an estate improvement programme, to assist local authorities in tackling the problem of severely run-down housing estates and flat complexes. This scheme is being administered by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Deputy McManus, and already proposals from a number of local authorities have been approved.
The ministerial task force is currently preparing its second report, dealing with issues which were not addressed in the earlier report. These include the misuse of non-opiates, such as cannabis and ecstasy, which is a nation-wide phenomenon. Recognising that the use of these so-called soft drugs could in time lead to the development of a serious opiates problem outside the current priority areas, the Government, in approving the first report, allocated additional funding of £1 million in 1997 to assist relevant health boards in preparing anti-drugs strategies outside the areas I mentioned.
In its second report, the ministerial task force will look at the treatment services available to prisoners who misuse drugs and the development of alternatives to prison as a way of dealing with such misusers.
The Minister will be aware that early last year I tried to get him and his colleagues to set up such a committee, so I am glad the Cabinet subcommittee has now been established.
How much of the £10 million is additional funding or how much is taken from existing subheads? Perhaps he could also tell me how much of the £3 million will be used to tackle the problem of run-down local authority housing and flat complexes because there is confusion as to whether it is part of the existing allocation for such schemes? Does the initiative have the confidence of the public and the local groups working in each of the 12 areas he mentioned? Following publication of the first report of the ministerial task force the Minister of State remarked that difficulties were being experienced in setting up the task forces. When I raised the matter on 28 January I said it was unfortunate that they were being distracted from the job they were being set up to do, to tackle the drugs problem, and that their time was being taken up with administrative wrangles. Is the Minister of State satisfied that all the difficulties have been fully resolved? What difficulties, if any, are being experienced with the local authorities and the Garda Síochaná? As the Minister of State is aware, the perception put forward in the ministerial task force report is not shared by the communities concerned.
The Deputy referred to the wrangling among the agencies involved and the difficulties experienced in putting the task forces in place. One of the purposes in putting the new structure in place is to ensure optimum co-ordination rather than competition between the agencies involved, as happened in the past. There has been no wrangling among them in putting the new structure in place.
The Deputy is referring to my remarks about the timelag between publication of the report on 11 October and putting the task forces in place. A major debate has taken place in each of the affected areas on who should be nominated to represent the community and how they should be selected. I was critical of the delay at the time but I am satisfied that the process was an immensely valuable one.
Communities, which have felt alienated up to now, have been given an opportunity to participate. They have conducted a thorough and extensive debate. There is a necessity for the agencies involved to continue to co-operate. It would be unfair if my remarks and those of Deputy Ahern were seen to reflect on them.
The moneys for improvements to estates and flat complexes are separate and distinct. This is an acknowledgement that some of the estates most seriously affected manifest all the signs, with which the Deputy is familiar, of neglect and being run down. The purpose of the allocation is to effect improvements within these estates which are experiencing difficulties provoked, for example, by activities such as joyriding.
The allocation can be put in context by looking at the figures allocated to the Eastern Health Board for this purpose. In 1992 it was allocated a figure of £1 million. Last year it was allocated £9 million by the Minister for Health, Deputy Noonan. The purpose is to co-ordinate the activities of the health board and those of the local drug task forces. There will, inevitably, be an overlap as they will address gaps in the treatment structure and consider questions such as prevention. Some schools are running courses with the assistance of community organisations to promote awareness of the dangers associated with opiate abuse.
Presumably, we will see the plans, when agreed. If a sum of £10 million is allocated, this will work out at between £700,000 and £800,000 per task force. Is the Minister of State happy that this funding will be properly targeted? As he is aware, we have been living with the drugs problem for many years in urban areas and, increasingly, in rural areas. The problem is not the lack of resources; money has been poured into many of these areas by various agencies and bodies. Rather, it is the failure to direct resources at the groups with which we might resolve the problem which continues to get worse. What structure does the Minister of State hope to put in place to produce meaningful results?
Drug task forces have been set up in eight of the ten areas nominated in Dublin. For various reasons drug task forces have not yet been set up in Crumlin and Ballymun. Their remit is to prepare a plan for the immediate community, be it a local treatment centre for drug abusers, a particular category of staff required to work in the community, recreational schemes and so on. In this context, I hope they will think along the same lines as the Minister, the local authority, the health board and the Garda Síochána. The plans will be submitted to the national drugs strategy team which will validate all applications and submit them to Cabinet for approval.
The national drugs strategy team, uniquely, comprises senior civil servants in the Departments involved, representatives of the Garda Síochána, FÁS and the health board as well as the community nominees, who were selected by me. They are Fr. Seán Cassin of the Merchant's Quay Project and Mr. Fergus McCabe of ICON.
From meetings which Members of all parties have attended, there has been a visible lifting of morale and a positive response in the communities concerned which have felt neglected, particularly during the past four to five years as the problem continued to get worse. They feel for the first time that they are involved and have access to the top.
I advise Members that we shall be proceeding to deal with priority questions at 3.15 p.m. I am sure Members share my disappointment that we have not made more progress at Question Time today. We have disposed of one question only. Members should help me to expedite matters, please.
I welcome what the Minister of State said, the establishment of the task forces and, in particular, the appointment of Mr. Fergus McCabe and Fr. Seán Cassin to the national drugs strategy team. The Minister must surely be concerned that two of the task forces are not yet up and running. Has the Minister set a timescale within which the funding which he has made available will get to these communities which are clearly in desperate need? While there is a great deal of understanding as to the process of establishing the task forces, there is equally a great deal of frustration that the funding which was announced last October has not reached any of the communities concerned.
Does the Minister accept that £3 million for estate and environmental improvements in areas where there is massive social deprivation, including over 50 per cent unemployment in some areas in Dublin, is totally inadequate, although it is welcome? It will only scratch the surface. In view of the slow progress to date since his report was announced, is it not unlikely that the target of providing treatment for every addict who seeks it by the end of 1997 will be reached?
Of course I am disappointed that the task forces in Crumlin and Ballymun are not up and functioning like the others throughout Dublin. I have learned the hard way that it is a little unwise to intrude into the reason that is the case but I am advised that in both cases the problems are likely to be sorted out over the next couple of weeks. I sincerely hope that is the case because it is relevant in another matter in terms of one of the supplementary questions put by Deputy Bertie Ahern. The moneys will not be spent on the basis of dividing the £10 million between the ten task forces but on the basis of the plans approved. If some task forces take so long arguing interminably about who should represent the area, there may be no money by the time they submit plans. That is another incentive to the two task forces concerned to put their houses in order.
On the question of funding, of course I would like to see the money issued as speedily as possible. That is why it is available. It also must be issued in a manner that will be productive. It is not simply enough to write to the Minister and say "I am in a drug-afflicted area so please send me a cheque". We must issue the money on the basis of a coherent plan that will improve the lot of people who are addicted to opiates in the Dublin area and that must be thought out before the money is issued. As soon as the plans are received by the national drugs team, I can assure the Deputy there will be no delay on the funding issue.
It is a matter for the Minister for the Environment to comment on the question of the allocation of £3 million for estate improvements and I am not really competent to do so. My recollection is that the subhead provides for £100,000 and an additional £3 million is a significant injection. I entirely accept what Deputy Gregory says, that if one looks at the stages of neglect of some of these areas in his and my constituency, one will acknowledge that £3 million will not put the matter right. However, a line of funding has been established and I hope more will be forthcoming.
This is a national problem, lest the question, the Minister's reply and the supplementary questions would give the impression that this problem of drug abuse is only within these designated areas where task forces are to be appointed. What exactly is being done, particularly in the area of prevention? Members are conscious in our constituencies, towns and villages of the problem of drug abuse and the resultant loss of young lives. The Minister has placed great emphasis on co-ordination between the various agencies. He talked about the Garda and the health services and other agencies, but he has omitted the whole area of education. Surely hope for the future is in the areas of prevention and education——
Brevity, please.
——and I would ask the Minister to respond on this area of prevention. What is being done outside these designated areas?
I accept that the problem of drug abuse is not restricted to the 11 areas identified in the report. However, I would make this distinction. The report was absolutely satisfied that the heroin problem, which is the problem to which we decided in the first report to give priority, is a Dublin phenomenon. The question of drug abuse outside Dublin is one of non-opiate abuse exclusively, according to the information available to us. The 11 areas were selected on the basis of the figures provided by the relevant agencies in terms of opiate abuse and that is why the focus is on those areas. The second report which is being prepared relates to the question of non-opiate abuse and drug abuse in the prisons. It will address the area which Deputy Burke identified.
An entire section of the first report is devoted to the question of prevention and education measures and it is probably one of its strongest sections. There are a range of measures, from Breaking the Cycle at the primary school stage to educative work both by the schools and the Department of Health. The Minister for Education has received too few plaudits for the work she has done in terms of initiatives, such as the home/school liaison scheme. She has provided money for additional teachers to work with parents and schools in the most disadvantaged areas of Dublin.
I agree with Deputy Burke that the challenge facing society is to avoid a whole new generation of young people falling into the clutches of the drug barons. It is a very extensive problem in Dublin and, whereas we may do no more than contain it in terms of the present generation of abusers, it is imperative that we try to prevent a new generation of young people going down the same road. As the Deputy said, education and preventative measures are imperative in that regard.