Mr. Eddie Mullins:

The main obstacle to the development of the MSIF in Dublin was public concerns about the impact on safety and business. All those fears should have been allayed at this point. We have had extensive engagement with all the stakeholders. The big lesson would be to ensure it is fit for purpose. We know drug trends are the way they are. We know cocaine and crack cocaine are big issues. Perhaps when we review this 18-month pilot - there will be a comprehensive report on its outcomes - the one in Cork should be a consumption room as opposed to a medically-supervised injection facility.

I have a point to raise on the medically supervised injection facility. It is an important aspect of drug treatment, but recovery, detox and aftercare are the main ones. We see people who go through a detox or recovery programme and into aftercare and how they have rebuilt their lives and their connections with their families and that is where we really have to concentrate. There is a chronic addiction issue, but there are barriers to people getting into recovery every day of the week. The cost of a ten-week detox programme with Merchants Quay is approximately €10,000 to €12,000. It is nearly double that to keep somebody in prison. We can provide detox followed by a 12-week recovery programme, then aftercare and then obviously on to stable and suitable accommodation. That can transform a person's life, and not just theirs but their family's as well. I showed Senator Fitzpatrick a letter I received from a lady in a part of Dublin. She had lost her daughter to suicide. Her daughter had addiction issues. Through all that grief she was writing to me to thank Merchants Quay for the support it had given her daughter. The last thing she said was she would send us a few bob when she had it. This woman clearly does not have a few bob. I know from her background she does not have a few bob. I am thinking of the connection she had with and the empathy she had for people in addiction. She saw recovery as the key to that.