An Bord Pleanála reconsiders application for supervised drug injection facility near school

The proposed development of the centre provides for an off-street waiting area and a reconfiguration of MQI’s existing services with the supervised injecting facility located in a vacant basement within the building. Photo: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

A planning row is set to reignite over a renewed effort to secure planning permission for the country’s first medically supervised injection facility.

An Bord Pleanála is to reconsider an application by Merchant’s Quay Ireland to operate a controversial drop-in facility at the drug treatment centre’s headquarters on Merchant’s Quay, Dublin.

The case arises out of the blocking of the proposed development last July following a successful High Court challenge taken by the neighbouring St Audoen’s National School on Cook Street. The High Court directed the case should be resubmitted back to An Bord Pleanála for reconsideration of MQI’s application.

The proposed development of the centre provides for an off-street waiting area and a reconfiguration of MQI’s existing services with the supervised injecting facility located in a vacant basement within the building.

MQI won a tender issued in 2018 by the HSE to operate the supervised injecting centre on a pilot basis for 18 months with the possibility of extending the trial period by another 18 months at its main centre at Riverbank Court on Merchant’s Quay.

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Its plans provide for a clinical area comprising seven individual injecting booths and associated care facilities as part of a wider redevelopment of the whole building.  It estimates that it will have the capacity to deal with up to 45 clients at any one time on the premises.  

MQI claims its planned hours of operation of 6-10am; 2.30-5.30pm and 7-9.30pm on Monday-Friday and 6-10am and 3.30-9pm on weekends are in line with international best practice. The charity maintains the initiative will save lives as similar centres across the world in cities like Barcelona, Paris and Sydney have proven successful.

It claims the new facility is much needed as it is estimated that two people in the Republic die every day from a drug-related cause. The charity claims the supervised injecting facility will allow drug users a safe, clean and compassionate environment where they will have access to medical and speciality services.

Merchant’s Quay Ireland also expressed hope that the initiative would result in safer streets for the entire community.

Objections

Around 100 objections were lodged with Dublin City Council against the new drug treatment facility including ones from St Audoen’s National School and the Clarence Hotel.  Other objectors include several well-known pubs from the nearby area including The Porterhouse, The Temple Bar and O’Shea’s Merchants as well as the Licensed Vintners Association and the Dublin Business Alliance.  

While it recognised the need for a supervised drug injecting facility, Fáilte Ireland also called for the concerns of local tourism businesses in the area to be given consideration. Dublin City Council refused the charity’s application for planning permission for the drug treatment facility in July 2019 on the basis it would negatively impact on the growing tourism businesses in the area as well as the local residential community.

Council planners said they had taken into consideration the overconcentration of social support services in the Dublin 8 area as well as the lack of a robust policing plan in their decision.

However, MQI successfully appealed the ruling to An Bord Pleanála which granted temporary planning permission for the supervised injecting facility for a period of three years.

The board’s own inspector acknowledged the high level of opposition to the project and the high level of complaints that public drug use, anti-social and criminal behaviour was occurring daily around MQI’s existing facility. 

St Audoen’s National School

The ruling was subsequently challenged by St Audoen’s National School which is located just 150 metres from the MQI building.

The school’s principal and board of management claimed they were in the almost unique position for a school in the Republic of having to have protocols in place for dealing with addicts, intravenous drug use, serious criminality and death.

While acknowledging MQI were providing services which were “a form of service to the afflicted,” the school claimed it has resulted in a toxic environment for pupils and staff.

In the High Court ruling, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said the board’s decision had not engaged adequately with concerns raised by the school about having a drug injecting facility in close proximity to schoolchildren.

The judge also quashed the board’s ruling on the basis that the decision to permit it for three years was unreasonable in the absence of any explanation.

Last month, the chief executive of the Ana Liffey Drug Project, Tony Duffin said it had been a decade since a supervised facility for people to inject drugs less harmfully was first proposed for Dublin. “It has been almost five years since supervised injecting facilities have been legal in Ireland. It is time one was opened,” said Mr Duffin.

He said the delay meant people remained out on the streets and in alleyways injecting drugs in unsafe, unhygienic and very public conditions. A ruling on MQI’s appeal by An Bord Pleanála is due in early June.