LIMERICK Labour TD Conor Sheehan has called for a consumption space for drug users in the city.
Speaking to the Limerick Post this week, Deputy Sheehan said we have a huge issue with an oversupply of cheap crack cocaine in Limerick City, and an issue with irregular drug use in Limerick.
“We need a safe consumption space for drug users in Limerick. We cannot continue to bury our head in the sand. We cannot continue our failed approach to drugs and drug addiction in Limerick,” he commented.
Following calls for an injection centre in the city, Sheehan said that the signs from the Dublin injection facility are positive but there is a lot of information to be learned from that.
In the meantime, Limerick, he continued, is still struggling with problem drug use and this is because of an inability to open safer consumption facilities due to the nature of our Misuse of Drugs Act, which limits the capacity to do that.
“The Government must consider drug law reform, and they can start by revisiting and amending the Misuse of Drugs Act to enable us to provide these types of facilities in other parts of the country and especially in Limerick. Labour has long campaigned for reform in drug policy. I hosted a public meeting on this in September and hosted a Private Members Debate on this in October,” the Limerick politician explained.
A safe consumption space, he maintains, is an effective harm reduction measure, including addressing drug-related deaths and transmission of blood-borne diseases.
“A safe consumption space is also an evolution of the supervised injection centre which has been pioneered by Merchant’s Quay in Dublin. This is about making drug use less visible in our city centre and communities, it is about reducing overdose rates and preventing harm.
“The report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drug Use, published in January 2024 is clear as is the commitment in the Programme for Government to a health-led response for people found in possession of drugs for personal use, with diversion to health services, and the commitment to work collaboratively on any recommendations issued by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Drugs Use.
“However, the fact remains that there has been little progress on achieving these objectives, while use of controlled drugs continues to rise; since the opening of Ireland’s first medically supervised injecting centre in December 2024, nearly a decade after being first proposed and legislated for, there has been no further progress on the provision of safe consumption spaces for cities such as Limerick.”
Deputy Sheehan continued: “Cocaine use has gone through the roof, it is now the most common drug treated, accounting for 40 per cent of all treatment cases in 2024, a 7 per cent increase on 2023, and a 250 per cent increase over seven years since 2017. The potency of drugs being sold for consumption is increasing, and new synthetic drugs continue to be introduced with unknown long-term health impacts. The European Drug Report 2024: Trends and Developments, showed Ireland had the highest level of drug deaths in Europe in 2020.
“We need to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use by repealing Section 3 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, 1977; commit to multi-annual funding for harm reduction services, and the resources necessary to support people who use drugs, in accessing health, social and recovery supports.”