Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have supported this legislation from the start. Although I have not been engaged with it in committee, I remember the furore that arose and the upset that was caused to some people when methadone clinics were first proposed throughout the city. However, the world did not stop. Nonetheless, there were teething problems and some of the latter will again arise in respect of this initiative. One teething problem was that people were coming from outside an area to avail of a service that was offered to them. Unless these supervised facilities are rolled out across the country, there will be people who will come from outside, along with the baggage they sometimes bring with them. That is one of the concerns and, obviously, it is a concern that can be dealt with when the regulations are put in place for the licence, in that whoever gets the licence can start to address who exactly the facility is targeted at.

The point the previous speaker made in terms of support services is very valid. I presume that any facility which applied for a licence would have to be one that has all of those support services available.

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If somebody who is using a facility decides at that stage that he or she wants additional supports, that must be available as near as possible to the injecting facility.

I do not think we should be afraid, as I have argued in respect of much legislation in the House, of having a review or referring it at the very least to the Dáil committee that has expertise on it. While the Dáil committee can do that anyway, it would be reasonable for the matter to arise there. There will be consequences to these measures and hopefully they will have the desired effects, are successful and can be rolled out. At the end of the day, this is aimed at protecting the health of the public in general and in particular those who are availing, whether we like it or not, of illegal drugs and injecting them. A variety of different concoctions are being injected at this very moment and it is not just what most people presume is heroin. We saw that in particular when the head shops existed. People were mixing every single type of chemical possible and we saw the effects that had in the accident and emergency rooms across the country. The doctors did not understand how to treat them because they were not aware of what was going into the person. At least if there are supervised injecting centres, they might have quicker information as to what may have been injected in order that they can address some of the side effects of these drugs if people present in accidents and emergency departments.

I think the amendment is reasonable enough. It is not a repeal of the Act every two years. In some cases, that is what people want. This is just to try and strengthen it. It might be just a once-off, but in two years' time we will have the first two years' experience. From that, we will have learned a lot and will be able to tighten up the legislation and the regulations and licence that pertain to it. The main thing is that we learn. Whichever are the pilot facilities, the ones that are granted a licence thereafter will be able to learn from the first ones into the breach.

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