IRELAND’S FIRST EVER supervised drug injection centre will be operating by next September, according to the head of the charity overseeing the service.
Eddie Mullins, the new chief executive of Merchants Quay Ireland, told The Journal that getting the pilot project up and running is the “absolute priority” for the next 12 months.
Speaking ahead of the launch of the outreach and support service’s annual report, Mullins said drug users are often partaking in drug use in “undignified conditions”.
He added that the injection centre will “save lives” once it’s operating.
Mullins also voiced approval for eventually moving towards a ‘mobile injection clinic’ model as seen in Portugal, where teams bring the service to communities.
Supervised centre
Attempts to construct a designated and supervised injection centre have been in the works for several years but have been blighted by planning permission problems, sparked by concerns from locals.
The centre would allow drug addicts to inject themselves in a safe environment. Users would be given clean needles and their drug waste would be disposed of in the centre.
In situations where an overdose takes place, immediate care would be provided.
Mullins said the centre would also allow those wishing to try to get off heroin or other drugs to be given help to do so through recovery programmes.
“It will give us the opportunity to engage with clients we previously wouldn’t have, and work with them in a much more meaningful way,” he said.
He said the last data for drug overdoses is for 2002, which recorded 409 deaths, of which a “significant number” were related to injecting.
“The reality is many of those people would have passed away in undignified conditions, so we’re very conscious this facility will without a shadow of a doubt save lives.
The project goes out to tender to recruit a builder in December and it is anticipated it will take less than four months to complete construction.
“We’ve overcome all the planning hurdles now and received clearance to proceed last December [from An Bord Pleanála].
“We’re working closely with the HSE and various stakeholders in the community and the plan is that we’ll open in around September 2024.”
“It’s full steam ahead with the facility and it’s a grown up way of dealing with the drugs issue and pretending it doesn’t exist,” Mullins said.
“We’re moving fast on it now so I’m very confident things will materialise very quickly.”
Mullins said it should also reduce drug paraphernalia and open drug use, which he said has become “synonymous with parts of the city” over recent years.
Mobile injection vans
Mullins, who has come to the job having previously served as governor of Mountjoy Prison, also said that he’s in favour of “mobile” injection clinics.
Similar services are deployed in Portugal and were part of its response to drug addiction issues as detailed by The Journal during a visit to the country last month.
Mullins would like to push for them as he believes they could better reach communities rather than having an “isolated, static” injection centre as what’s currently proposed.
“Supports are best delivered in the local community and one of the downsides to establishing a facility like MQI’s is that we are bringing people potentially from other areas into the one facility.
“Whereas the mobile unit can reach into the hard to reach areas, but the difficulty there is that our legislation doesn’t provide for mobile units,” he said.
However, he noted that legislation needs to be changed to allow mobile injection teams.
Mullins added that the pilot for the forthcoming injection centre needs to also be a success.
“I’d be hoping from that review that recommendations such as mobile units, or consumption rooms, can be considered rather than just solely injection facilities.”
Citizens’ Assembly
Mullins said he was looking forward to the findings of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use, but felt that the result may be “symbolic” in nature.
Various concerns have been expressed about the Assembly by criminal justice and addiction experts in recent weeks.
Mullins said MQI does not encourage people to take drugs and wants to work with them to move away from substance use. He said people on the margins of society are unlikely to be the people propping up the multi million euro drugs trade.
Instead, the “bulk” of the industry is supported by people from middle-class backgrounds who “rarely have contact with the judicial system”, unlike people with chronic addictions.
“That’s why we want to treat heroin use as an illness and really, there needs to be much greater support and services to do that,” Mullins said.
In relation to the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use, he added: “I’m not quite sure what will emerge from the Assembly. It may be more symbolic than actually anything else in terms of what the impact will be on the ground for our people. Whether it will have an impact on drug habits, I’m not so sure.”
“The people who are chronically addicted, they still, unfortunately, engage in criminal behaviour and that won’t change.”
“It’s a very big question to ask somebody to change laws around heroin use and I’m not quite sure the research is there internationally is there to show that it would be a good move.
“But there’s certainly an argument that we should provide greater supports… I’ve never met somebody who wanted to be addicted to drugs. They’ve wanted to break that cycle and they need support to do that.
Fentanyl warning
Mullins said that there is no evidence that the synthetic opioid fentanyl has arrived in Ireland but believes that it’s “inevitable”.
Last week, drugs minister Hildegarde Naughton said the HSE, Gardaí and other bodies were working behind the scenes in preparation for fentanyl use becoming more prevalent in Ireland.
It comes as Europe braces itself for a potential heroin shortage following a cultivation ban by the Taliban in Afghanistan, where much of the supply comes from.
He said it’s unlikely that services will be “taken by surprise” and that they should be “ready where possible”.
“We’re not in the situation where we’re going to be hit and then we’re trying to come up with a strategy to deal with it. We’re engaging with clients on a daily basis to establish the types of drugs they’re using and testing used needles whether drugs are prevalent.
“The evidence at the moment is that it’s not there but we know it’s inevitable.
“I’m not minimising because it is a very big challenge due to the potency, but I do believe that we’re openly talking about it and that level of interest can only be positive.”
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