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DRUGS MINISTER AODHÁN Ó Ríordáin has a fairly controversial brief, that much seems undeniable.
In a speech in London yesterday the minister outlined plans to decriminalise (as opposed to legalise) the carrying of small quantities of drugs. Today he’s gone one further and talked about his plans to bring about a ‘supervised injection centre’ in Dublin city centre.
Speaking on RTE’s Today with Seán O’Rourke, Ó Ríordáin said that the approach is a “compassionate” one, but also a logical one.
“We’re trying to address a situation in Dublin’s city centre where people are injecting heroin in street alleyways, in parks, supermarkets, playgrounds. It’s unsightly, and it’s unsafe, particularly for the users themselves,” he said.
Make no mistake, these people will be injecting themselves anyway. This facility just serves the purpose of having them do it in a medically supervised facility.
It’s a compassionate, radical way of dealing with a problem. It’s also hopefully the first step on the road to recovery for these people, the most vulnerable people, who exist outside any drug treatment programme.
The facility in question would be based in a fixed location in Dublin, for two purposes – so everyone would know where it is, and to confine the activity therein to one place.
Currently, there are 88 such facilities to be found across Europe.
‘Medically supervised’ means that medical staff are on hand should a user overdose. It does not mean that drugs would be administered by medical personnel. The drugs being used would also be brought to the centre by the user.
When it was suggested to Ó Ríordáin that his idea amounts to enablement and state approval of bad practice he was emphatic in his dismissal of the charge.
“The very least we can do from a humanitarian point of view is to try and understand these people’s situations,” he said.
We’re talking about people who are so vulnerable, and their lives are so chaotic as a result of crippling addiction. These people who will do these drugs regardless.
This shows we are compassionate, that we understand their situation. It can be the first step to recovery. It also means taking used drug paraphernalia off our streets, and reducing the risk of HIV or Hepatitis infection.
Whether or not Ó Ríordáin’s idea gets off the ground remains to be seen. His Drugs Bill won’t go before the Oireachtas until early next year, and, as you may have heard, the present Dáil is not long for this world.
One Twitter wag contacted the show to ask whether Ó Ríordáin would be happy for the new injection centre to be situated in his own garden, although a response wasn’t forthcoming as the minister had already left.
Meanwhile, the minister insisted that if the Dublin city centre injection centre was to prove a success, there would certainly be a mandate for centres in other cities and towns around the country.
“The key challenge here is to first do the centre in Dublin properly, to do it successfully,” he said.
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had a samsung for 2 years, got an iPhone and within half an hour was wondering why i hadn’t had an iPhone all along. Still streets ahead in my opinion.
Both are a waste of money. Huawei all the way.
Siemens C10 all the way.
I think Apple products are far superior to Samsung. Let the games begin!
stupid apple fan boy rejoicing at being over charged for old technology.
Can’t fault them, they do make great products, iPhone 5s is a super phone and laptops are sweet especially the MacBook Air
What do i use my old iphone and ipads for? that cannot upgrade beyound 5.1 ios and therefore are useless all apps are 6 and over. Why do they make devices to survive more than 2 years when they are worthless after that. Thats where they make their billions i suppose.
Its called Planned Obsolescence. Good documentary regarding the above on youtube.
The most recent iPhone that is not compatible with iOS 7.0 is the 3GS, released in 2009, slightly longer than two years. It was compatible up until iOS 6.1.3 as far as I know.
And the iPad only came about in 2010
Still have an iPad 1. Is only on iOS6 but works fine for everything I need it for, i.e. Web browsing, video/ audio streaming services etc.
Cork’s Average Income rises again!
Think I’ll stick with the ol’ Nokia 3310, still going strong after 11 years
I hate that kind of arrogance where Apple think are the only company that are part of the ecosystem, when everything they do is built upon the shoulders of others – Their phones would be useless without the work of Ericsson, NSN & Huawei who share their knowledge to make networks available to all; their ipads and laptops dependant on the internet, built on open standards made available to all, the thosands of websites that are built without any help from apple; Music players built on the backbone of mp3 developers, and the app store built upon the millions of developers who didn’t work on the 10 or so apps that apple have developed.
Like or loathe their products (I like them), Apple as a company are the Disney corporation of the 21st century, and will stiffle creativity and originality through their obsession with cash and patents above openness and sharing. Eventually, they will just be a US only patent trolling company left behind by the rest of the world.
(nb: apologies for the rant)
Totally agree. I like apple products however not a fan of wallet gardens and will therefore not support them.
Giz a lend apple
I wonder how many Chinese lads jumped out of windows because they couldn’t bare to work in apple factories while an American corporate giant makes enough money to cure world poverty….
Foxconn dont just make apple products they make everything xbox one ,Asus motherboards
4
Oh go away Declan you miserable sod.
Does it really matter? :P
My god filthy rich.
But can it play snake
Doesn’t make me want my I phone any more..
And have paid €1.95 in tax
Imagine if Irish Exchequer was receiving 12.5% of those super profits in corporation tax every year from Apple Inc?
Currently it’s circa 2%, and the Market Capitalisation of the company is headed towards $1 trillion, with Hard Cash on the Balance Sheet of $150 bn.
Great News for Shareholders, but is it good for Society in general that such cash piles are building up in lots if international behemoths, as a result if low and inequitable CT rates. 10% extra filtering into Government coffers, would go a long way to addressing perceived unfairness of system for “stateless” multinationals. And Governments could apply those extra revenues for productive public works in their respective countries, thereby generating additional and essential economic activity, employment, taxes etc.
The tap of trickle-down economics needs to be turned on fully, to offer more hope to the masses in a broken economic world.
If our government got some of that money we wouldn’t see it anyway all the cronies would be looked after and that’s about it
It’s a year on but well worth a read, first one is Wall Street Journal, the second one is interesting to us as irish people. Of course tax avoidance is all right it’s the non regulated tax evasion that middle men dislike.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324787004578495250424727708
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-apple-reduces-what-it-pays-in-taxes-2013-5
Apple . meh, its easy to see how they have massive profits what with obscene prices apple fan boys suck up to. Apple don’t do much designs in terms of electronics, its mostly outsourced but not to Samsung who rightly told them to fluck themselves.
If the lads up in the dall got their hands on that money they would just squander it
Get a life geeks…
Sent from my pink Tamagotchi
Apple . meh, its easy to see how they have massive profits what with obscene prices apple fan boys suck up to. Apple don’t do much designs in terms of electronics, its mostly outsourced but not to Samsung who rightly told them to fluck themselves.
Sounds great but in reality other ppl bear the loss.
have your say