HSE not to blame for drug plan failure

Anna Quigley, co-ordinator of the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign, said that to some extent it suited the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs to shift the blame to the HSE.

“Our view is the department is not taking responsibility. At the end of day, they are responsible for implementation of that rehab report,” said Ms Quigley, who is the community representative on the National Drugs Strategy Team.

“The HSE has been given a lead role to employ the rehabilitation co-ordinator, but it’s not a HSE strategy and the department is more or less handing the implementation over to the HSE.”

She said the department, and not the HSE, should have set up the National Drugs Rehabilitation Implementation Committee. She said CityWide had been arguing since the rehabilitation report was published in June 2007 for the committee to be immediately set up.

“It doesn’t guarantee you get resources, but at least you’d have people responsible. At the moment the report is just sitting there.”

She said that if the HSE wasn’t doing the job, the department should have taken the initiative back. “To some extent it seems to suit them to say it’s the HSE, because they are being blamed now for everything.”

The rehabilitation structure was a cornerstone of the Government’s drugs strategy last year.

Last December, the then Finance Minister, Brian Cowen, said: “I have added €12.5m to fund the implementation of the recommendations of the National Drug Strategy Rehabilitation Report.”

The then drugs strategy minister, Pat Carey, said: “I’m very happy €12.5m has been given to implement the rehabilitation report. That is what we were looking for.”

The new drugs strategy minister, John Curran, said the Government hadn’t made “the level of progress” it wanted. He said the extra hospital beds for detoxifying addicts hadn’t materialised.

“It simply hasn’t happened. We’re regularly in contact with the HSE. They are going through a period of change and some issues we’d like to see addressed haven’t physically happened yet.”

A spokesman for Mr Curran later clarified that only about €2.5m of the €12.5m was directly going to rehabilitation and that this included a €750,000 fund for local projects.

A HSE spokesman said the recruitment process for the national rehabilitation co-ordinator was “under way and the post will be advertised shortly”.

He said the national committee was “currently being formed” and that each relevant agency had been invited to nominate a representative.

No information was forthcoming on the status of the detox beds.

Source: The Irish Examiner, 15/07/2008