Vol. 486 No. 2
64 Mr. Higgins (Dublin West) asked the Minister for Health and Children whether the Cabinet committee on social inclusion and drugs will commission an urgent report on the number of heroin addicts in Dublin; and if this will include an assessment of those who are not on treatment waiting lists. [22280/97]
At present there are no hard data on the number of heroin addicts in Dublin. In order to address this issue, the Eastern Health Board commissioned a research study in 1997 into drug misuse in Dublin. This is a capture-recapture study to estimate the prevalence of opiate misuse in the Dublin area. The study is being carried out by Dr. Catherine Comiskey, at the department of applied science, Regional Technical College, Tallaght and the results of this study will be published in the coming weeks.
The study will give prevalence figures for drug users in the Dublin area, including those not currently on waiting lists and will provide information to the health board on the number of persons in each community care area who are misusing drugs. This information will be useful to the health board and other agencies providing services to prevent and treat drug misuse, in providing adequate resources to address the drug misuse problem in the respective areas of this city.
