Drugs services facing crisis

Drugs services will be shut down or scaled back over the coming months due to funding cuts, according to senior figures in local drugs task forces.

This week drug treatment providers and addiction specialists will gather in the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street as part of a new campaign aimed a protecting services in the face of ongoing cutbacks.

The campaign is being organised by Citywide, a network of community activists and organisations involved in responding to the drugs crisis, and is supported by the National Voluntary Drugs Sector.

Campaigners say cuts to health in last week’s budget will filter down to frontline services and could result in doors closing on those seeking help with drugs and alcohol problems.

Earlier this month the Blanchardstown Drugs Task Force launched its own campaign to defend drug and alcohol services in Dublin 15 and will be represented at this week’s meeting in the Gresham.

The local task force says it had been warned by Government sources that its funding was to be cut for the sixth consecutive year in last week’s budget.

“On behalf of the people of Blanchardstown who are affected by drugs and alcohol misuse, we wish to protest in the strongest possible terms at this unwarranted attack on local services,” a spokesperson said.

“More cuts now will be a direct assault upon the weak and the damaged people of our community.”

The task force has had its funding slashed by 23 per cent in recent years, resulting in cuts to 15 local drugs services.

And despite the cuts, task forces have been lumbered with the extra responsibility of providing alcohol treatment services under the Government’s National Substance Misuse Strategy.

Co-ordinator of the Greater Blanchardstown Response to Drugs (GBRD), Philip Keegan, said he feared for the future of the project and was looking for support from the local community.

“Because most projects are funded through the Department of Health and the HSE, any cuts have a knock on effect,” he said. “We won’t know for a couple of weeks what the specifics are.

“Youth services have been drastically cut over the last couple of years. We had to let somebody go last year and I don’t know what we’ll do if we’re cut back any more.

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Source: Jack Gleeson, Dublin People, 21/10/13