Nearly 40 per cent of the 1996 Budget allocation for an initiative to combat drugs remains unspent, the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee has been told.
The committee chairman, Mr Jim Mitchell, said he was "horrified" that only £1.5 million of the £10 million had been spent in 1997, and £4.5 million last year, leaving £4 million unspent.
Ms Margaret Hayes, Secretary General of the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation which oversees the drugs initiative, said that after a slow start over two-thirds of the 200 projects approved were operational and 62 per cent of the money was spent.
The "major blockage" was winning local acceptability for drug treatment centres in some areas - "on balance", the centres would have to be set up even if a minority of local people opposed them. Decisions to set them up would be better made at local level.
Mr Pat Rabbitte TD, who chaired the last government's ministerial task force on tackling drugs, said young people were dying from the effects of drugs and there was a "crying need for action in the community", yet the Government could not spend the money it had voted to deal with the problem.
Mr Sean Ardagh TD said the Eastern Health Board's procedures for consulting local people before setting up drug treatment centres were "appalling". They were "getting the backs up of the people who should be on their side".
The fears of elderly people and mothers with young children about addicts coming for treatment in their areas could be addressed by the health board, for example by putting in special liaison officers and showing people how drug centres worked safely in other areas. Instead it was "going head to head with local communities".
He said local drug task forces could play a key role in calming people's fears and preparing them for the opening of such centres, and had already done so in some areas. Mr Rabbitte said there was a "crying necessity for someone to drive this effort; otherwise we'll allow objections on the basis of misinformation and disinformation to delay it for ever".
Mr Mitchell said he would ask all the agencies involved in the drugs initiative - the Departments of Health, Justice, Education, Tourism and Environment - to supply the committee with papers on their roles in the next month, and would convene a conference in two months. He would also ask for observations from the Eastern Health Board, the Garda and the prison service.