Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 October 2024

Committee on Drugs Use

A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed)

9:30 am

Mr. Eddie Mullins:

Since we last spoke, I visited the consumption room in Portugal. It really reinforced my view that it is the correct approach to people who inject drugs or, more importantly, people who use drugs. Obviously, our legislation is about an injection facility as opposed to a consumption room. It is a complex area. It has been in planning for eight years. There have been many objections, many of which reflect people's genuinely held beliefs. There are many concerns about what a facility like this could do to the local community. We have tried to engage as openly as possible with all our stakeholders, including business, local residents, the school and various other stakeholders in the community, about how the service will look and what way it will operate, and to dispel as many fears as we can about this notion that it would be a honeypot for all those who inject across the city and country. That is not the case. The international evidence would demonstrate that these are local facilities used by local people who use drugs. We do not envisage any other outcome here other than what we have seen in other jurisdictions.

Many of the concerns are born out of ignorance. I do not mean that people are ignorant, but that they are ignorant of the reality of what this facility will provide. It will be a safe, health-led approach to people who inject drugs. I look at the Health Research Board, HRB, statistics. The most recent statistics show that 439 people died of drug poisoning in 2020. The highest number are people who overdosed on methadone. A total of 129 people in 2020 overdosed on methadone. Methadone is a legal substance. It is prescribed. It advances the need for health-led facilities where people can come in and be monitored and supported. Naloxone or whatever we need to administer can be administered in a timely fashion when a person goes into a state of overdose. It is a facility that I have urged people to be patient about and to judge it on its outcomes as opposed to on perceptions about it.

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