Mr. Tony Duffin:

A number of points have been raised. Deputy O'Brien made reference to the pilot, which is to be welcomed. I understand that one pilot site will be established initially. In Dublin, we have a river that divides the people moving through the city. Our clients are no different. Ideally, we would have two pilot sites in Dublin, one to the north of the river and the other to the south. It would be remiss of me not to mention that colleagues and the local drugs task force in Cork have taken a position and have identified that they want to establish a pilot site there. So, it is not solely a Dublin issue. There are other areas where public injecting is deemed to be problematic for the local communities.

Members spoke about registering people and authorised users. We need to talk about this and work out what exactly we mean. I was fortunate enough to have worked in the Sydney medically-supervised injection centre in March 2015. While it is important to gather data so that we understand what is going on with the people who attend, it is a confidential service. In Sydney the process is managed whereby people give a name. It might not be their name, but they give a name and they give a password which they must remember. The centre then knows it is the same person coming back each time and knows the history of the person. However, we may not identify truly who that individual is. That appears to be a very pragmatic way to address the issue. If the person walks in to the centre and cannot match the name they give to the password then they must re-register and go through the process again. That is one example. There are other examples of centres where people do not register at all and where access is open. Other places may have a stricter registration process. It makes sense to me, however, that the pilot would emulate the Sydney experience.

With regard to Garda entry into a service, I know that the police in New South Wales can access the Sydney centre. The policing plan for that area says that the police will make contact ahead of coming in, which is more of a courtesy. I understand that the legislation provides for the police to access the centres as and when they like and they can walk straight in without any difficulty. In actual operations, one is working closely with a team of police officers who understand the nuance of what we would be trying to achieve and so they do not just storm in and walk around. They make contact before coming in. If, however, a police officer is in pursuit of a person for a crime, then of course they will come in and arrest that individual.

I will now talk about the issues of areas that surround a supervised injection facility or drug consumption room. Prohibition exists in New South Wales so I was able to see, at first hand, that people who were walking to the medically-supervised injection centre in Sydney were not stopped at all by police. I also saw people who were drawing attention to themselves perhaps by anti-social behaviour or by suspicious behaviour such as dealing. I saw police officers stopping them, arresting them and processing them as they would normally. There were no zones around the centre where the prohibition does not apply. It was not an offence to be in possession of drugs only within the designated premises. That is my experience and while it does not always make sense to people, I saw that it worked in action and it was manageable. I was fortunate enough to go to a local community policing meeting with the area commander who used language like "our" medically-supervised injecting centre. The sense of ownership was quite obvious.

The gardaí on the ground and the people at the Ana Liffey Drugs Project, Merchant's Quay Ireland and the various other services are very pragmatic. We work together and we will find our way in managing the situation, notwithstanding obviously that legislation will be put in place.

I do not see how the needle exchanges would be impacted upon particularly. I do not envisage people travelling. The evidence is that people do not travel far to get to supervised injecting facilities. We have a very serious problem in Dublin city centre where public injecting occurs. Supervised centres would address that issue. We do not envisage people travelling from other areas. Once the pilot is over - all being well and the evidence being that it has worked - then people in other areas would be able to apply for licences which, if awarded, would enable them to establish the services themselves. I will leave the issue of Suboxone to my colleague Professor Bury.