Expert nursing group removed from National Drugs Strategy

Frank Feighan, who has responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

An expert nursing body that had been due to help oversee the implementation of the latest National Drugs Strategy has hit out at Frank Feighan, the minister in charge, saying it feels a "deep sense of insult and sadness" over how it was removed from the process.

The Ireland Chapter of international Nurses Society on Addiction (IntNSA) queried the decision by the minister, who has responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, to exclude the group from the National Oversight Committee [NOC] on Drugs, and claimed there was "a significant lack of transparency and extremely poor communication from the Drugs Policy Unit around the entire consultation process relating to reform of the NOC".