The Department of Health’s Junior Minister with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy yesterday announced an additional €4.2 million for the National Drugs Strategy as a result of the Government’s 2025 budget announcements.

In an infographic published by the Department of Health’s National Drugs Coordinator Jim Walsh via social media platform X (Twitter), details of how this additional money will be spent was revealed.

The bulk of the additional revenue will go toward expanding community-based drug services to ‘meet increased demand’ (€2m in 2025), as well as rolling out alcohol treatment services to ‘ensure full geographic coverage across all health regions’ (€1m in 2025).

However, investment in ‘harm reduction initiatives’ will receive only €400,000 in 2025. The €400,000 is expected to fund a range of complex initiatives.

As listed in the infographic, these funds are expected ‘to provide a rapid response to the threat of synthetic drugs, a wastewater drug surveillance programme, a national awareness campaign and capacity building on drug-related violence and intimidation, and extended opening hours for the supervised injecting facility’.

This small sum comes just months following Crainn’s previous reporting of a HSE official telling the Oireachtas that ‘additional resources’ were needed to expand already limited drug-testing sites across the country.

This comes in light of an increased prevalence of contaminated drugs, particularly of cannabis – Ireland’s most used illicit substance. Spates of overdose clusters have also increased in intensity and frequency due to heightened levels of contamination within the drugs supply.

The rest of the additional money is set to be used to fund ‘drug prevention programmes and public health awareness campaigns’ as well as the scaling up of ‘brief interventions’.

The Department also announced an additional €300,000 to ‘support research, evaluation and international collaboration;