"Minister for Health Simon Harris and Minister of State for Communities and the National Drugs Strategy, Catherine Byrne today (Tuesday) welcomed the Government’s decision to approve the publication of the Misuse of Drugs (Supervised Injecting Facilities) Bill 2017.
"The Bill, which was approved by Cabinet at its meeting this morning, will allow the Minister for Health to issue a licence, with conditions, to operate a supervised injecting facility.

Harm Reduction

(Needle Exchange Program Activity) "MQI’s [Merchants Quay Ireland's] needle-exchange service recorded approximately 25,000 client visits in 2010, a 20% decrease on 2009 figures. The report highlighted a continuing high level of demand for homeless services, with 57,840 meals provided in 2010. The number of health care interventions provided increased by 15%, to 3,685 in 2010.

(Overdose Mortality) "In 2010, there were 164 deaths owing to poisoning recorded in Ireland by the NDRDI [National Drug-Related Deaths Index]. This represents a substantial drop compared to 2009, when 216 such deaths were recorded (Table 6.4.1.1; see also Standard Tables 5 and 6). It should be noted that annual data previously reported has been changed as the database has been updated as new information has become available.

(Trends in Non-Fatal Overdoses) "Data extracted from the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) scheme were analysed to determine trends in non-fatal overdoses discharged from Irish hospitals in 2010. There were 4,562 overdose cases in that year, of which 40 died in hospital. The 4,522 discharged cases were included in this analysis. The number of overdose cases increased by 8% between 2009 and 2010, following a decrease of 13% between 2008 and 2009 (Figure 6.3.1.1)."

(Incidence of Hepatitis C Infection Related to Injection Drug Use) "Hepatitis C is one the most common blood-borne viral infections among injecting drug users and is transmitted through contact with the blood of an infected person. The main routes of transmission are mother-to-baby, unsafe injections, transfusion of blood and blood products, and unsterile tattooing and skin piercing. There were 1,236 cases of hepatitis C reported to the HPSC in 2010 (Table 6.2.1.2), compared to 1,257 cases in 2011.

(Incidence of HIV Related To Injection Drug Use In Ireland) "Voluntary linked testing for antibodies to HIV has been available in Ireland since 1985. According to the most recent report of the HPSC, at the end of 2011 there were 6,287 diagnosed HIV cases in Ireland, of which 1,485 (24%) were probably infected through injecting drug use (O'Hora and O'Donnell 2011).

Treatment

(Trends in Utilization of Drug Treatment) "It is important to note that each record in the NDTRS [National Drug Treatment Reporting System] database relates to a treatment episode (a case), and not to a person. This means that the same person could be counted more than once in the same calendar year if he/she had more than one treatment episode in that year.

Problem Drug Use

(Prevalence of Problem Drug Use In Ireland) "A PDU is defined in Ireland as an ‘injecting drug user or long duration/regular user of opiates, cocaine and/or amphetamines’ (EMCDDA 2004).
"It is not possible to estimate the number of injecting drug users or PDUs, apart from opiate users, in Ireland as the National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS) does not use a unique identifier.

(Prevalence of Illegal Drug Use Among Youth in Ireland According to European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD)) "The Irish data show a fall of 3 percentage points in the rate of lifetime use of any illicit drug between 2007 (22%) and 2011 (19%) (Table 2.3.1). Boys (23%) were more likely than girls (15%) to have used illicit drugs at some point in their life.

(Prevalence of Tobacco Use Among Youth In Ireland According to ESPAD) "Over two-fifths (43%) of the students (42% boys and 45% girls) reported that they had smoked cigarettes at some point in their life, and 21% (19% boys and 23% girls) had smoked cigarettes in the 30 days prior to the survey. Over one-fifth had had their first cigarette at or before the age of 13 years. Five per cent were smoking daily at or before the age of 13 years.