1,700 'new injectors' attend voluntary treatment facility

Ireland's biggest voluntary drug treatment facility last year treated almost 5,000 drug users who were injecting heroin or cocaine.

More than 1,700 of those were classified as "new injectors" whose drug problem had reached a chronic stage last year, forcing them to seek help.

According to the annual report of the Merchants Quay Ireland Project, Dublin, about one in 20 of their new clients are from EU accession states, mainly Poland.

Drug-addicted Poles are accessing the project's services so regularly that the project has recruited Polish speakers and sent some of its Irish staff on courses to learn the language.

As well as those foreign nationals seeking help for cocaine and heroin problems, Merchants Quay saw a very significant increase in the number of eastern and central Europeans accessing its homeless services.

In October 2005, for example, between 20 and 30 people from those groups were accessing its homeless services every day. By October of last year that figure has risen to 100 per day.

The figures are contained in the project's annual review for 2006, which is due for publication this morning.

Merchants Quay director Tony Geoghegan said the continuing high number of drug injectors presenting for treatment underlined the need for needle exchange programmes.

"The real value of them is that they are often the first point at which a drug user will access services, it's a way of drawing them into treatment options," he said.

"We don't have [State] needle exchanges at the moment. That means we're not reaching a lot of users and if you can't reach them you can't help them."

He was concerned at the number of foreign nationals now presenting at the project. Although the vast majority were seeking assistance for homelessness rather than drug abuse, about 90 of the 1,754 new injectors seen by the project last year were foreign nationals.

Mr Geoghegan said the true number of foreign national drug addicts in the greater Dublin area is almost certainly much higher.

"A lot of them come from countries where accessing services would involve engaging with a state agency and they would be reluctant to do that. They might also feel when they are here that looking for treatment will harm their long-term status in Ireland."

Many of the homeless eastern and central Europeans are living in squats in Dublin or in freight containers in Dublin Port, the report concludes. Mr Geoghegan believes if the ban on access to social welfare for newly arrived EU nationals was relaxed, many would not be in need of the agency's homeless services.

Merchants Quay, which is situated on Dublin's south quays, also saw a significant increase in the number of cocaine injectors seeking treatment last year. About 20 per cent of its injectors were using cocaine.

Merchants Quay began enrolling its staff last year on courses dealing with the treatment of crack cocaine addiction. It has also begun treating inmates in the State's prisons for the first time.