Dr. Eamon Keenan:

From a HSE perspective, we are very clear that what is being proposed is a health care facility. Whether it is the HSE running the facility or the HSE running it by means of a service level agreement with an NGO, we are committed to making it work. We are looking to target the most vulnerable and chaotic group of people in our society, people whose voices have not been heard today. We have engaged with the service user representative group, UISCE, and are working with it to produce a survey of street injectors. The survey asks users their views on the operation of such a facility and any concerns they have about it. Deputy O'Brien mentioned the registration process. When somebody has drugs and access to a facility like this, he or she wants to use the drugs quickly, not to have to hang around and undergo a long process before being given access. Some people may be injecting into the groin and the facility will have to be able to accommodate that in a dignified way.

There are concerns among users that they will be hopped on when they visit the facility, engaged in counselling straight away or forced into a treatment process. We are saying we will work with anybody within the context of our national drugs rehabilitation framework, which offers a broad approach to ensuring a continuum of care. Our position is that a supervised injecting facility is at the far end of harm reduction and people can move from it right through to a situation where they are able to access services. In fact, they may be fast-tracked into those services when the time is right for them. We see it as an important element of the overall care the HSE can provide to drug users.