Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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348. To ask the Minister for Health to outline the number of deaths in the past three years that have been recorded on the national drug related deaths index and that occurred as a result of synthetic opiates being administered to persons; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29623/17]

Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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The National Drug Related Deaths Index (NDRDI) is an epidemiological database administered by the Health Research Board which records cases of death by drug and/or alcohol poisoning and death among drug users and those who are alcohol dependent. The Health Research Board published a report on the NDRDI in December 2016, which shows deaths up to 2014, the latest year for which data is available.

According to the NDRDI, there were 592 drug-related deaths between 2012 and 2014 where any opiate(s) were implicated. Some of these deaths involved synthetic opiates, either alone or with another opiate type drug. Synthetic opiates (for the purposes of this analysis) include Methadone, Tramadol, Oxycodone and Fentanyl. It is important to note that these figures are based on a multi-response analysis which means that some deaths could have more than one type of synthetic opiate implicated and therefore could be counted more than once, for example in the methadone-related deaths and the Tramadol-related deaths.

Methadone was the most common synthetic opiate implicated in drug-related deaths over the three years (279 deaths), followed by Tramadol (72 deaths), Oxycodone (37 deaths) and Fentanyl (8 deaths). The source of the drug is not always known, so therefore it is not possible to confirm if they were prescribed.

The NDRDI does not include poisoning deaths due to medical misadventure, where the death was due to an error of a health professional.