”Merchant’s Quay Ireland says location will be safer, and will remove some open drug use and litter from streets”
Included in the Programme for Government the facility has been almost a decade in the making, having first been proposed at Cabinet in 2015 by Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, then minister of State with responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy. Enabling legislation followed. It was beset by delays and objections, notably by a local primary school, in the planning process, and permission was granted in December 2022. It will be located in the basement beneath MQI’s Riverbank location in the south inner city, and will operate seven days a week, for about seven hours a day. Bays will be for single individuals only, meaning couples will not be able to inject together.
”Eddie Mullins CEO of MQI (Merchants Quay Ireland) said…We are working with the community to minimise any potential negative impacts. We’ll structure operating hours to avoid school opening times. We’ll have community safety wardens out to support people moving along the street. We believe the [facility] will be very successful and it will save lives because for the first time we are saying: ‘People in addiction are unwell’ and we are treating them with a bit of dignity.”
(Kitty Holland…(Irish Times…23/1/2024)
Rialto Community Drug Team 