Drug policy failing - agency

The National Drugs Strategy is failing in a number of respects, according the chief executive of the State's largest voluntary drugs treatment agency.

At the publication of the annual report of Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI), Tony Geoghegan said the number of people using its drug services continued to grow last year.

He said more than 3,000 people used the agency's needle exchange service last year, a figure that has remained steady.

"It is a major concern that it has remained so high. It indicates to us that there has not been the delivery of localised drug services, despite that being a promise in the National Drugs Strategy," Mr Geoghegan said.

The report also shows the number of new service users at MQI has grown by 470 or 6 per cent compared with 2004.

Mr Geoghegan said people tended to inject drugs for a year before they came to MQI for help. "Maybe if there had been services in their own locality they might have made contact with treatment providers earlier. That's a year when they are exposed to hepatitis C and HIV."

The report also highlights the increasing demand for the charity's homelessness services, particularly by people from eastern Europe. By September 2005 there was an average of 20 to 30 eastern Europeans attending the MQI service every day.

Mr Geoghegan said the State had been "really, really slow in addressing this problem". While the habitual residence condition, which restricts non-Irish nationals' access to social welfare payments unless they have been living here for two years, had been "slightly softened", agencies such as MQI were being left to "meet the brunt of this".

MQI had produced information leaflets in a number of languages and some staff had undergone language training, he said.

MQI provided almost 40,000 meals to homeless service users last year.