The number of people using the facilities of Dublin's Merchant's Quay Project for drug addicts rose by 25 per cent last year on the previous year's figure, according to its annual report. Last year, 2,220 people availed of the service, 500 more than in 1996.
The report from the project, which is run by the Franciscans, paints a bleak picture. It shows that more drug users are homeless and younger, with the average age being 24, compared to an EU average of 29. This masks an even more depressing statistic: the average age for those attending for the first time is 18.
Merchant's Quay Project is one of the largest voluntary agencies working with drug users in the State and provides services ranging from crisis intervention and health promotion with street drugusers to stabilisation programmes and drug-free residential treatment.
According to Mr Tony Geoghegan, assistant director for clinical services, young drug users were a particularly vulnerable group. They appeared to be less aware of HIV/AIDS issues and engaged in more risky injecting behaviour. They were also less likely to be interested in treatment.
He said low dose intervention treatments did not necessarily work with this age group. Strategies aimed at young addicts had to be developed.
Mr Geoghegan said he believed the number of addicts using the project would probably decline this year because of the increase in local drugs task forces. However, the number of addicts would continue to increase as the underlying reasons for addiction - poverty and disadvantage - had still to be dealt with.
Some 59 per cent of the people using the centre said they had come off drugs at one time or another. The report said unemployment and poverty were related to drug use and if people become drug-free but remained unemployed their chances of returning to drugs were high.
It noted an increase in the number of young women attending for needle exchange. They were a particularly vulnerable group and many were prostitutes to support their habit. The project was planning a women's health project which would address the needs of this group.
Last year, the project established a long-term therapeutic community and training centre to give former drug users a one-year skills training course. This will give former drug users greater access to more mainstream training which can break the cyclical relationship between unemployment and drug use.
It is also engaged in programmes linking former drug users with the labour market and in training people working for homeless agencies so they can cope with drug users.