Call for medical injection centres for drug users in Ireland

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Call for medical injection centres for drug users in Ireland

17 December 2014

Draft legislation to introduce medical injection centres for users of opiates such as heroin may be put to Irish Government early next year, according to Ana Liffey Drug Project director Tony Duffin.

Addressing the audience at Ana Liffey’s 2015-2017 strategy launch in Dublin City Hall, Mr Duffin said that measures are needed to combat the “phenomenal” amount of public injecting going on around Dublin in particular. “We’re currently working with a voluntary assistance scheme of the Bar Council because it would be illegal to deliver a service like that at the moment,” he told The Irish Times prior to the event.

“They’re working on draft legislation, with a senior counsel heading that up. We hope to have draft legislation to bring to Government in the second quarter of next year,” added Mr Duffin, whose organisation is also recommending the implementation of naloxone use in Ireland- a drug that reverses the effects of drug overdoses.

“We’re working with the HSE at the moment on a naloxone pilot, that is part of our strategy. We want to reduce incidents of overdoses as a goal, but within that there’s actions, and one of those actions will be naloxone,” he said of the drug, which has successfully reduced the number of overdose deaths in Scotlandsince its introduction in 2010.

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