Vol. 559 No. 5
273 Mr. Crowe asked the Minister for Health and Children if, in view of the number of people dying as a result of drug use, he has proposals for or if he will consider the establishment of a register of drug deaths in order that the scale of the problem can be better understood and the necessary action taken to reduce the number of deaths in the future. [26381/02]
The National Drugs Strategy 2001-08 was published last year and contains 100 actions. One of these actions is to develop an accurate mechanism for recording the number of drug-related deaths in Ireland. Overall responsibility for this action rests with the coroners service and the Central Statistics Office.
My Department will co-operate fully with the relevant agencies in order to establish a mechanism to accurately record the position in relation to drug-related deaths.
