the number of problem drug users in Cork city at 859<\/a>, with an average of 35 deaths every year in Cork city related to problematic drug use.<\/p>\nOne option being explored is a mobile unit, which would allow the facility to be moved around the city rather than being located in a permanent, dedicated space. However, Deputy Rice has expressed the view that a mobile unit would be “ineffective,” and argued that the drug facility should share space with a proposed homeless services hub in the city centre.<\/p>\n
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A space at the successful Dublin facility(Image: Merchants Quay Ireland)<\/p>\n
The TD said: \u201cI have serious concerns about the Minister\u2019s suggestion that a mobile unit could be deployed in Cork. There is certainly a place for mobile units, but as the second largest city in Ireland, Cork needs a dedicated centre.<\/p>\n
“A centre provides a place in which aftercare is provided and people are monitored, this simply cannot be done in a van. A mobile unit is not sufficient for Cork. Moreover, a prime location for a supervised centre has already been identified – the proposed integrated inclusion health hub for homeless people in Cork city. Co-locating a supervised injection facility with other inclusive healthcare services should be the objective of our health services. Work on that hub must begin now so that the design and planning phases can incorporate this essential service. If the Minister continues to dither on a decision for Cork, this opportunity will be lost.<\/p>\n
In the D\u00e1il this week, Minister of State for the National Drugs Strategy Jennifer Murnane O’Connor emphasised the success of the Dublin facility overseen by homeless and drugs services charity Merchants Quay Ireland, but stopped short of committing to a dedicated, non-mobile Cork centre: “Everything is being assessed. The evaluation of what is happening with drugs around the country is being looked at. We are assessing every opportunity here, working within the Department, the HSE and, as the Deputy knows, our drugs task forces, which do huge work within our communities”<\/p>\n
Deputy Rice added: “A safe injection facility would reduce drug use on the streets and in the parks. It would also decrease drug based litter and the presence of discarded needles in our communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile repeated governments\u2019 drug policies have failed, the safe injection facility in Dublin has been a huge success. [Merchants Quay Ireland CEO] Eddie Mullins has said that there is ‘no doubt that countless lives have been saved.’ Cork urgently needs a similar facility. This cannot wait and I will continue to advocate for this facility and more generally a health-based approach to drug policy in this country.”<\/p>\n
Deputy Rice continued: “Deputy Rice continued: “We need to think beyond just injection. Right across Europe, we have drug consumption rooms. Crack cocaine is on the increase. I met Cork Simon earlier this week and they said that in Cork city lots of people are smoking crack cocaine.”<\/p>\n
There have been fears that the life-saving drug facility for Cork could be “years away,”<\/a> with one senior figure in a charity helping addicts telling CorkBeo last year: “These injection centres have worked in major cities around Europe. We know they can make a big difference, why we have to wait and see what happens in Dublin… It’s just more waste of time when we could be doing something now that we know will work.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mobile unit – or a dedicated fixed facility in Cork city centre 14:55, 21 Nov 2025Updated 15:02,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[14641,103,86040,397,396,2120,61,60,86039],"class_list":{"0":"post-152417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-cork-city","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-health-and-wellbeing","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-hse","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-local-democracy-reporting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/0_MQI.png\")
The supervised injection facility in Dublin(Image: Merchants Quay Ireland)<\/p>\n