Five projects are to receive funding over the next 3 years under the Department of Health’s National Drug Prevention and Education Funding Programme. The fund aims to increase the delivery in Ireland of prevention programmes that are supported by evidence and adhere to international prevention standards.1,2 The five funded organisations and their projects are outlined in Box 1. 

They will be delivered in school, third-level, youth work, and community-based settings. To mark the start of the funding programme, representatives of the five projects met with statutory and non-statutory stakeholders working in the field of prevention at an event hosted by the Department of Health on 6 June 2023. 

The MyUSE Research Group in University College Cork (UCC) is to receive funding over the next 3 years under the Department of Health’s National Drug Prevention and Education Funding Programme. The funding programme aims to increase the delivery in Ireland of prevention programmes that are supported by evidence and adhere to international prevention standards.1,2

Background

In May 2023, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, signed Section 12 of the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018 into law, aligning alcohol products with other food and beverage products that already contain health information and, where appropriate, health warnings.1,2 Ireland now leads the world in the introduction of health labelling on alcohol products; no other country in the world has such comprehensive labelling. 

To include the voices of young people at the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use, youth consultations were carried out on behalf of the Department of Health.1 A report on these consultations was published in May 2023 in advance of the second meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly.2 

Aims and methodology

The consultations aimed to give young people a voice at the Citizens’ Assembly. To meet this aim, the views of young people on the impact of drug use on their lives, families, and communities were explored, as well as their suggestions for appropriate responses to address the harms caused by drug use. There were two strands to this work – a group consultation and a survey – which intended to capture the views of young people with differing levels of exposure to drug use. 

A new strategic action plan for the delivery of the national drugs strategy, Reducing Harm, Supporting Recovery, for 2023 through 2024, was published in June 2023.1,2 

Context of action plan 

The action plan represents the latest phase in the lifetime of the strategy, which at the time of its publication in 2017 was accompanied by a shorter-term action plan (2017–2020).1 A midterm review of the strategy was undertaken in 2021 and its findings informed the development of six new strategic priorities for the remainder of the strategy.3 Six Strategic Implementation Groups (SIGs) were established to drive delivery of these priorities. The new action plan represents the output of their work in agreeing a set of actions for the six groups and associated deliverables for five of them. (SIG 4 did not list any deliverables.) Overall, the new action plan represents a continuation of earlier commitments and outputs from the national drugs strategy.