Mr. Eamonn Quinn:

It has been rather daunting to be presented with so many official people of high capacity. They are so thoroughly involved and integrated into the various issues surrounding supervised injecting facilities. I am heartened by what I am hearing around the room and from the support from the Deputies and all the witnesses today.

I have been involved in this work for an extended period. I want to offer some reassurance to Deputies O'Brien and Durkan in respect of their concerns regarding the heads of the Bill, especially head 10, which relates to the provision of access for An Garda Síochána. I wish to reiterate what my colleagues in An Garda Síochána said. These provisions are already in existence for nightclubs and public houses. The legislation is not envisaged to go beyond what is already in place for many other established licensed premises.

Ultimately, this is a health-led and harm-reduction initiative. It will be a low-threshold portal to reach out to marginalised individuals to allow them to access a safe environment to administer their own drugs. There will be people there to support them if things go wrong. They can also access other services as well. They will and should be integrated with other services provided by the State. The purpose of head 10 will not go beyond what is already in existence anywhere else, but it offers reassurance to the greater public.

I wish to address some of the issues raised by Deputy Durkan in respect of what has happened in other jurisdictions and the concerns that have arisen. People have concerns over what they call the honey-pot effect. This relates to people being attracted to an area and drawing in crime, drug users and various characters. The concern is a gut reaction to all of these things and it is understandable. However, we have a significant body of evidence gathered over a long period. These places have been established for over 30 years. In particular, in the past 16 since the foundation of the centre in Sydney there has been more evidence gathering. The same applies throughout European sites as well. There is significant evidence to show that there is no honey pot effect, no rise in criminality and no rise in drug use. However, we have improvements in drug overdoses and drug-related litter. A question was asked in the first session about how we manage and measure these things. It is a difficult thing to measure. There are few tangible things we can measure. However, we can measure perceptions. There are many different ways of data mining and gathering information and perceptions. In Sydney, they have measured perceptions before, during and after. They saw the support in the community rise and rise. We heard reference to the fact that the police in Sydney referred to it as "their" supervised centre or "our" medically-supervised injecting centre because they are so involved in it. These perceptions exist. The perceptions of people who inject drugs will be important, as will the perception of people in the local community. All the evidence gathered to date, especially during the past 16 years, shows that the concerns can be ameliorated quickly. There are legitimate concerns. The areas where these centres are located start to benefit from the provision of the service as well.

I wish to address some other concerns about the bureaucracy. The intention in the Bill is to keep bureaucracy to a minimum and to remove any barriers. At the same time there needs to be an element of monitoring and data collection to ensure that we can build more evidence in an Irish context to prove the benefit of these facilities and to engage any potential developments in future. I think I have addressed most of the issues that Deputies and Senators have raised.