Pádraig Rice (Cork South-Central, Social Democrats)

Yesterday at the committee, we talked about the integrated health hub for homeless people in Cork city. This hub needs to be established and we need the capital investment for it. This is the prime location to have a safe injection facility in Cork city. What we need here now is not to miss an opportunity. We are establishing a new centre there. We can co-locate these services but the Department needs to do the planning and design now and needs to get this right. We need to think beyond just injection. Right across Europe, we have drug consumption rooms. Crack cocaine is on the increase. I met Cork Simon earlier this week and they said that in Cork city lots of people are smoking crack cocaine. What we need, therefore, is an expansion of the legislation to also include safe drug consumption and for the facility in Cork to be prepared for that, with ventilation and all the requirements around that. I do not think the required planning is going ahead. I want to see change to the legislation, I want to see a commitment to Cork, I want to see investment, I want that homeless hub opened and I want a sense of urgency around here. This is costing people's lives in my city every single year. It is not good enough.

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