State ‘failing to tackle heroin addiction’

THE Government is failing to tackle the growing problem of the country’s 15,000 heroin addicts, focusing its resources on reducing supply of the drug rather than reducing demand, the head of the country’s biggest drug treatment centre said.

Director of the Merchants Quay Project, Tony Geoghegan, said the fight against drugs has moved away from helping addicts overcome their problems and towards criminalising them.

“Since the Veronica Guerin murder and the public outrage that it caused, drug problems are being dealt with in the criminal justice system instead of the health system.

“There has been an increased emphasis on reducing the supply of drugs, with an increase in seizures and the setting up of the Criminal Assets Bureau. While a lot of money has been spent on this, there has not been enough spending on reducing the numbers of people who are addicted to heroin,” he said.

There are an estimated 15,000 heroin addicts nationwide, with 12,000 of those in the greater Dublin area.

Another 8,000 are on methadone, and according to Mr Geoghegan, there are no resources to help them move beyond that stage so they go back to heroin or become destabilised through cocaine use.

Mr Geoghegan called for a strategy to reduce the demand for drugs, provide rehabilitation programmes and reintroduce people to education or employment.

He said that this, along with proper drugs awareness campaigns, “would put a hole in the bottom of the drugs market.”

The Minister of State Noel Ahern has defended the Government’s strategy.

“I am listening and working with the local drugs task forces and now the regional drugs task forces are a key part of the drugs strategy,” he said.