Vol. 252 No. 3
asked the Minister for Health whether he is satisfied that the planning of a drug addiction centre in the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin, will not have the effect of discouraging young persons from looking for treatment lest they be sent to this hospital.
6.
asked the Minister for Health whether a person who voluntarily seeks treatment for drug addiction may be sent to the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin, for custodial care for his addiction.
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 and 6 together.
The treatment of those suffering from drug abuse and drug dependence is being dealt with at three different levels. In co-operation with the Dublin Health Authority the Jervis Street Hospital authorities operate a clinic and advisory service in that hospital. The Dublin Health Authority at its new adolescent unit at Usher's Island will provide treatment for those who can be dealt with in an "open" environment.
The new drug unit in the grounds of the Central Mental Hospital will provide services for unstable cases who cannot be treated in an "open" unit. The decision to provide this security unit arose from the experience of the authority in attempting to treat such cases in a residential unit at St. Dymphna's, North Circular Road, where a large proportion of the patients were found to be unmanageable. I am satisfied that the steps as detailed will provide a comprehensive service and that the services being provided at Jervis Street and Usher's Island should encourage young persons to seek early treatment.
Voluntary patients will be accepted for treatment at the Dundrum unit which, however, as I have already explained, is primarily intended as a security unit.
Does it mean that if a person goes in voluntarily as a patient he can be forcibly detained at Dundrum? Is that permissible?
Yes. I think that under the Mental Treatment Act a person may voluntarily ask for a stay in a mental hospital under compulsion for a period of six months if such person is addicted to drink or drugs. He may voluntarily ask to be placed under security.
Is the Minister aware that we are still only touching the tip of the iceberg of this problem? People are alarmed at the increasing incidence of drug abuse in Dublin at the present time. Is the Minister aware that there is no compulsion on people to make them take treatment and only two of every hundered people treated for drug addiction in the last year or two have given up drugs, according to a newspaper article recently?
The Deputy would get a much more authoritative statement than mere rumour from the Working Party on Drug Abuse which has presented its final and full report to me. I propose to publish a summary of the findings of that report soon and to publish the full report at a later date. We are completely up to date about the amount of drug abuse. We regard the steps we have taken up to now as sufficient. There are some further steps to be taken including possible amendment of the law and including the question of education as to the risks. That is a matter of very great difficulty because it is now known to the public in general that some experiments in a crash campaign in a certain part of Great Britain have resulted in an increase of 15 per cent in the intake of drugs by schoolchildren so that anything which is done publicly must be done with the greatest possible care. The committee have suggested a course of action to me in their report. I will now examine it.
In a mental hospital one is particularly careful about the voluntary patient and if he wants to go he is allowed to go unless he is a person who is suicidal or homicidal, or something like that. The suggestion is now that a person could come in for treatment voluntarily and find himself in a place like Dundrum for six months.
The Deputy should ask another question about this. The position is that a person can come to the health authority, or to a psychiatrist and say "I want to be cured and I do not want to be let out." The Deputy is right in saying that a person would have certain rights to be let out if he said "I do not want to stay". The Deputy should ask me a specific question on that point.
The Minister said "including possible amendment of the law" in reply to Deputy L'Estrange's supplementary question in relation to the working party's report. Is it not the position that an amendment of the law is imperative to deal with the drug situation?
In regard to the extent to which district justices can take account of a person's mental state in the way they prescribe sentence—the Deputy must know about that—there is some lack in the law there that should be corrected.
There is the question of drug control from a legal viewpoint.
We have instituted a lot of drug control and there will be further drug control in the Poisons Bill which I propose to bring before the Dáil shortly.
Is the Minister aware of certain cases where persons have been prescribed treatment and have offered themselves for treatment and that, unfortunately, the only place this treatment could be given was in a mental institution which they regarded as entirely detrimental to their rehabilitation?
I had not adverted to that point. The question of drug addiction is so serious that a person wanting to be cured should be prepared to go into the new unit at the governor's house in the central hospital. It is a matter of life or death. The rate of cure for people taking heroin and morphine is, unfortunately, terribly low in all countries.
