The proceeds from the Criminal Assets Bureau, which are linked to drugs, should be used to fund drug treatment programmes, the Irish Medical Organisation has said.
In its pre-Budget submission, published today, the IMO said patterns of substance use in Ireland are causing considerable health and social harm. "As a result considerable strain was being put on the health services," it said.
IMO vice president Dr Martin Daly
In its submission, the IMO repeated its claim that recent Health Service Executive cutbacks were having a devastating impact on the provision of health services.
The organisation's president Dr Paula Gilvarry said: "As a nation and as a society, Ireland is confronted by many opportunities and obstacles."
"However, none are more challenging than the problems that beset a health service which has been starved of funding for generations and is even now suffering from a deprivation of adequate and appropriate investment," she said.
The IMO is seeking the adoption of the OECD System of Health Accounts (SHA), which would be published annually across the health service, which it says would provide a standard framework for comparable accounts.
The organisation also called on Minister for Finance Brian Cowen to make a commitment to "ring-fence" funding for cancer services.
"The shortfall in funding which has occurred in 2007 must not be allowed to have an impact on cancer services in 2008," IMO vice president Dr Martin Daly said. "The Government must guarantee the cancer services programme into the future."