Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Government to create a Minister of State post to deal with Ireland\u2019s growing drug problem.<\/p>\n
Crowe was speaking \u00a0in the D\u00e1il on a topical issue he tabled on a newly released National Drug-Related Deaths Index from the Health Research Board (HRB) and said new responses and new ideas were necessary to respond to the scale of problem.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe National Drug-Related Deaths Index found that there were 5,289 deaths due to poisoning by alcohol and other drugs among drug users in period between 2004 and 2012. This is the population size of a small town.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is this not being discussed on TV, radio, in the newspapers, and at Cabinet meetings?<\/p>\n
\u201cPoly substances, including methadone and heroin, are responsible for the highest amount of the deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of those active in drug prevention and rehabilitation believe that the number of deaths was much higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 2012 there were 633 deaths, a slight decrease on the previous year.<\/p>\n
\u201cTallaght, in my constituency of Dublin South West, has had 85 drug related deaths since 2004and there were 14 deaths recorded in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cYet Task Forces have seen multiple cuts in core services over the past 5 years. In Dublin alone the Canals Area\u2019s budget has been cut by 29%, Ballyfermot 25%, Dublin North East 37%, Finglas 30%, Tallaght 23%, Blanchardstown 35%, and Walkinstown 24.7%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is despite the fact that Drugs Task Forces have an increased workload because they now deal with alcohol abuse as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of getting new resources to tackle emerging needs, they are operating with shrinking resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that we urgently need a\u00a0 dedicated Drugs Minister.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe resources recovered and seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau need to be redirected to the communities most affected by drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more targeted education and rehabilitation projects and it is unacceptable that Government Departments like Education are increasingly refusing to attend Task Force meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cA specific Drugs Minister needs to be appointed to oversee all of this and to begin tackling this huge societal problem that is affecting so many communities right across the State.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Government to create a Minister of State post to deal with Ireland\u2019s growing drug problem. Crowe was speaking \u00a0in the D\u00e1il on a topical issue he tabled on a newly released National Drug-Related Deaths Index from the Health Research Board (HRB) and said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,24,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drugs","category-dublin-south-west","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2047,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2046\/revisions\/2047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}