Cork supervised injection centre ‘would cost at least €1m and need 20 staff’

A SUPERVISED injection centre for Cork would require at least 20 staff and funding of at least €1m a year, according Southern Regional Drug and Alcohol Taskforce co-ordinator David Lane.

This week, Cork City Council chief executive Anne Doherty called on elected members of Cork City’s joint policing committee to lobby for a supervised injection centre for Cork City.

Mr Lane welcomed Ms Doherty’s support, but said that such a centre was “still a bit off” for Cork.

He told The Echo that it would require a lot of investment.

“It is a matter of getting the money for it,” he said.

“It would cost between €1m and €1.5m annually to run and there would be between 20 and 25 posts needed to run it. It is a big investment.”

Supervised injection centres for heroin users in Cork and Dublin were part of the 2016 plans for government. Mr Lane said it had been hoped that such a development would have been able to use evidence-based research from a similar model in Dublin, but that project had been hit with “challenges”.

Judicial review of Dublin plans 

The Dublin plans, by Merchant’s Quay, were rejected by Dublin City Council in 2019, with the possible impact on tourism in the area cited as one reason for the rejection. That decision was overturned by An Bord Pleanála in December 2019, but a judicial review was taken by a primary school in the area.

In July, a ruling was made against the An Bord Pleanála decision, stating that the planning decision “makes no reference at all to the school, education or the impact of the proposed development on the welfare of the pupils”.

At Monday’s joint policing committee meeting, Sinn Féin TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said he would raise the issue of a supervised injection centre for Cork with Heather Humphreys, the justice minister.