HSE 'doubling down' on plans for mobile drug injecting centre in Cork city

The HSE's David Lane said the opening of a drug injection centre would treduce the mount of drug litter on streets.

The HSE is “doubling down” on proposals to set up a mobile drug injecting centre for Cork city after a long-fought battle for a pilot facility in Dublin got the green light.

HSE’s coordinator of Drug and Alcohol Services in Cork and Kerry, David Lane, said the HSE, with the support of other agencies, will progress this proposal over the next 6-12 months — with the key issue being funding.

An Bord Pleanála granted Merchants Quay Ireland planning permission to operate the country’s first every medically supervised injecting facility (MSIF) at its offices in Dublin city centre for a trial period of 18 months.

Registered users — which MQI told the board will be largely existing clients — will be able to legally inject drugs in the centre, but will have medical supervision and other supports available.

The board’s inspection report acknowledged the scale and severity of the problems long experienced by the local school and the local community adjacent to MQI offices — in terms of anti-social and criminal behaviour, public injecting and drug litter — but concluded the proposal would significantly reduce much of these problems.

'It's well overdue'

“I think it’s a great day in terms of the decision, I’m delighted,” said Mr Lane. “It’s well overdue and we’d be really excited for something like that to happen in Cork.” 

The HSE in Cork and the Cork Local Drugs Task Force has been campaigning for a service in Cork city for many years and have brought in other relevant agencies, including Cork City Council, gardaí and businesses.

Mr Lane said: “What we are exploring currently in Cork is to establish, first, because it wouldn’t be as expensive and it wouldn’t be as challenging in terms of planning permission, we’re looking at the possibility of setting up a mobile medically supervised injecting facility for the city.

“We’ll really be doubling down on that for the next 6-12 months for Cork and see where we get in terms of attracting resources and wider public support in terms of the benefits of it.” 

He said the overall aim is for a fixed site, like in Dublin, but that they intend in the first half of this year to visit locations in Europe where they have established mobile sites.

Funding challenge

Mr Lane said they had the support of local agencies, but that the challenge was “getting it funded”.

He said there was “a whole process” of applying for funding and that he was happy for other partners to be involved.

“In terms of Dublin that is all coming through the Department of Health and through HSE, so there would be an estimates process around all of that," Mr Lane said. 

"What we’d be looking to do is to have a business plan in the first two quarters and make a proposal then for the estimates process for 2024. That’s the time frame I have in my own mind.” 

Mr Lane said the HSE had two full-time needle-exchange support workers on the ground to provide health support to street heroin users.

“The bottom line — and this is not exclusive to Cork — is we have overdose deaths," he said. "We are looking at how we can prevent overdoses — and a facility like this works in terms of that. For the local community and businesses, it takes drug injecting off the streets and it’s a huge benefit in terms of drug litter.”