Fixed injection in city centre is ‘vital’

“A fixed site is vital, not just for the clients but for the wider community. I think that the independent evaluation ongoing in Dublin will provide evidence of the importance of the service.”

Eddie Mullins, CEO of Merchant’s Quay in Dublin, a medically supervised injection centre on the banks of the Liffey, said a permanent centre for Cork will be a vital part of any drug policy the city implements going forward.

The centre at Merchant’s Quay was opened in December 2024. It allows people using intravenous drugs to inject them in an environment where they are monitored by healthcare professionals, who can intervene if something goes wrong.

The centre has had 17,000 visits from 1,500 people since it opened.

Mullins said to date 270 interventions have been made with naloxone - a drug used to counteract overdoses - administered. He said that this has amounted to 16 deaths avoided.

“That’s 16 families and communities that have their loved ones still with them,” he said.

Mullins said that it is “absolutely a life-saving facility, but it also gives dignity”.

“We treat our users the same way we would treat anyone with a chronic medical condition. We have to support people, it’s not about enabling drug use,” he said.

He said that a similar facility should be opened in Cork once the pilot scheme is concluded in Dublin. The Merchant’s Quay facility has resulted in a drop in the open use of drugs on the streets, which he said has become “very fashionable” in Cork.

He also said a facility in Cork would have the added benefit that the facility in Dublin can provide a lot of data to reassure communities who may be hesitant about a similar site along the Lee.

“There were concerns there at the time, and they were all valid,” he said. “We could only look at other jurisdictions, and there was a fear that this would act as a honeypot, that it would attract people from everywhere.”

He said what they found instead was that 90% of their users were already using the other homelessness services offered at Merchant’s Quay.

Calls for an injection centre in Cork have come from a number of sources.

Eoin Murphy, Operations Manager at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral said the issue of drug users injecting on the cathedral’s grounds is a problem that predates his time there. He said that he and his staff have been doing their best to help drug users they meet.

“We are advocates of a health-based approach, and we engage where we can, where it doesn’t compromise the safety of staff.

“We ask that, at a minimum, they clean up after themselves as we have a lot of children that come through here for instance. However, we would generally encourage them not to administer on the grounds at all,” he said.

The staff of St Fin Barre’s work closely with the area’s community gardaí, and Murphy said they were a great help.

He also said they work closely with the HSE’s Needle Officer for Cork, Frank Horgan, who provides support with training and the provision of needle boxes.

The calls have come from local representatives as well.

At the latest meeting of Cork City Council, Solidarity Cllr Brian McCarthy said the law and order approach to drugs did not work, and a health-based approach was necessary.

“If it is within the council’s ability to provide harm reduction measures with proven benefits, then that isn’t a choice, it’s an obligation,” he said.

This article was produced with the support of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme funded by Coimisiún na Meán.