There are 15 heroin treatment centres within a small area north of the Liffey and three more in the area immediately to the south of the river in central Dublin, attracting thousands of addicts into the city centre each day.
One centre alone, the Drug Treatment Centre in Pearse Street, Dublin 2, is doling out methadone to 1,200 addicts daily, it reported last year. There are no available statistics for how many people are being given methadone -- a synthetic form of heroin -- in the other 17 "treatment" centres in Dublin city centre.
The last figures available from the Health Service Executive (HSE) suggest that it also gave out almost 50,000 needles to addicts in 2007, the vast majority in Dublin city centre. Traders representatives say that while needle exchange is an important way to stop the spread of infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis, handing out so many needles without supervision in a city centre is a public health hazard. There are now 34 needle exchanges in the country.
The cost of treating addicts last year amounted to €275m, according to figures supplied by the HSE in response to Dail questions earlier this year. The HSE carries out over a million immunoassay tests a year on addicts for infections like hepatitis and HIV.
There is further spending by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, which funds 14 "drugs task force" groups around the country.
Despite more than three decades of initiatives and debate and hundreds of millions spent on treatment, anti-drug campaigns, studies and the establishment of dozens of research groups, the problem is getting steadily worse, according to gardai and people in the voluntary sector.
Source: Jim Cusack, The Sunday Independent, 26/09/2010
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