Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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690. To ask the Minister for Health the cost of opening supervised injection facilities in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. [12933/16]

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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On 15 December 2015, the Government decided to include additional Heads in the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill to provide enabling provisions for supervised injecting facilities. These provisions would enable the Minister for Health to issue licences permitting the establishment of supervised injecting facilities to provide enhanced clinical support to, and mitigate the problem of public injecting by, chronic drug users.

Drafting of the Bill by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel is at an advanced stage and, subject to approval by Government, it is anticipated that it will be published in coming months.

In the event of the planned legislation becoming law, it is envisaged that initially one supervised injecting facility would be established on a pilot basis in Dublin city centre. An independent evaluation would be an intrinsic element to this initiative; determining the utility, safety and cost-effectiveness of the supervised injecting facility in an Irish context. The outcome of such an evaluation will inform any decision to licence further facilities. In line with the experience of other countries which have established such facilities, it would be expected that the numbers would be few and the locations carefully selected to address most effectively the requirements and concerns of the service users and the wider community.

There is no finalised costing for the opening of supervised injecting centres. These can only be established when site, an operator and the scope of such a service has been determined..