A MAN who died of methadone poisoning in a Dublin Garda station, where he was being detained for questioning about the fatal shooting of a young mother, was not on a methadone treatment programme, an inquest has heard.
Dwayne Foster (24), Woodbank Avenue, Finglas, was discovered unresponsive in Coolock Garda station in the early hours of March 7th, 2006, and was taken to Beaumont Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A postmortem by Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis found Foster had died from methadone intoxication. Foster was being questioned about the shooting of mother-of-one Donna Cleary, who was shot dead at a party in Coolock in the early hours of March 5th, 2006.
Foster had been administered methadone twice on March 6th, 2006, shortly after 11am and again between 8pm and 9pm, by Dr Peadar Kirk, who saw him in Coolock Garda station.
Dr Kirk, who described Foster as “a credible witness”, prescribed the medication after Foster told him he was a drug addict, was on a methadone treatment programme at the Ballymun clinic and was on 60 millilitres of methadone per day.
Chairman of the Methadone Protocol Prescribing Implementation Committee Dr Joe Barry told the inquest at Dublin City Coroner’s Court yesterday that there was no record of Foster ever having been on the central treatment list of people prescribed methadone by their GPs or clinics.
He told the inquest that if Foster had been attending Ballymun treatment clinic he would have been on the list. He said the list was accessible to GPs during office hours and was active and reliable. “If somebody who is not used to methadone gets methadone, it can be dangerous,” said Dr Barry.
Dr Kirk administered just under half the amount Foster requested on both occasions following thorough examinations. He had tried to make contact with the Ballymun clinic to verify that Foster was on the methadone programme there, but was unsuccessful.
The doctor did not ring the Drug Treatment Centre Board to confirm that Foster was on the central treatment list.
“I was happy to administer the amount of methadone I did . . . I made an attempt to confirm the account he gave me with the drug treatment clinic . . . I spent some time doing that . . .
“I didn’t see the critical need of taking the step of contacting the drug treatment board at that time. The essence of all of this is the clinical assessment,” he said.
GP Dr Aidan Morris, who was Foster’s GP since his diagnosis with nasal and throat cancer in 1999, from which he recovered in 2000, told the inquest he had never prescribed methadone to Foster and was never aware Foster used methadone or was on a methadone maintenance programme.
When Foster arrived at Beaumont Hospital by ambulance from Coolock Garda station shortly after 3.00am on March 7th, 2006, he was cold and likely to have been dead for some time. He had been seen at Beaumont Hospital six hours earlier and had been assessed as having a soft tissue injury and discharged home.
Earlier, in video footage of Foster being questioned by gardaí at Coolock Garda station the night before his death, he told a garda who asked him if he was “into heroin” that he was into cocaine or “coke”.
Foster said he was “heavy into cocaine” for a while but had an operation on his nose for using drugs and was told if he didn’t stop he would die.