COMMUNITIES WORST affected by the drug crisis must start gathering data on the impact of Government spending cuts, a specialist in social policy research has warned.
Brian Harvey, who was addressing a conference attended by staff from community drug projects across Dublin, said recording such data would be the only way to defend against such cuts, which he said would inflict “huge pain” in coming years.
He warned: “You have to do this because nobody else will.”
He said that while economist Colm McCarthy, chair of An Bord Snip Nua, had said cuts to community drug projects would be relatively painless, past experience showed such cuts “do work their way out through the community over a period of years and communities do feel huge pain”.
He found overall the budget for community services against drugs had been reduced by almost 20 per cent over the past two years, while overall Government spending was down this year by 1.8 per cent.
“Already there is evidence of jobs lost in voluntary organisations engaged in community development in general and in organisations engaged in work against drugs in particular.”
Assertions that cuts to community drug projects would not damage communities had to be challenged with hard data.
“There is a real danger that the gains communities have made will be lost,” he said.
“When they lose community projects, communities lose leaders and champions.”
