Mr. Eugene Lennon:

I wish to address some points made by Deputy Chambers. He raised a question about authorised users. The model is not intended to be overly bureaucratic. We are conscious of the group of users. These are people who may be living a chaotic lifestyle, for example, chronic users and hard-to-reach people. The aim is to make it accessible for them. Normally, there are some restrictions. These services operate in other countries. They tend to restrict children, pregnant women and what are termed naive users, in other words, people who we believe are not really drug addicts but who may want to try it out. They do not normally facilitate such people.

Reference was made to licences. Several of the heads relate to licences because the proposed legislation would represent a major change for Ireland. There are injecting centres in approximately 90 cities throughout the world. This has been a cause of debate in Ireland. We have to take the licence issue seriously. Five or six of the heads relate to how people get a licence, how a licence may be revoked and how conditions may be applied during the time the licence is in force. There is an issue with transfer. Let us suppose an operator is given a licence. Then, for some reason, the operator is unable to continue the service or the licence is revoked. We may need to transfer that licence relatively quickly to be able to maintain the service for users. That is the purpose of the provision.

Deputy Chambers also referred to the issue of safety for staff. There is a general duty of care for any employer but there will also be provision for regulations around managerial and clinical governance and related issues. This will be taken into account. These are important factors in other centres throughout the world. The security of staff has to be considered in all these situations.