A man and a woman who took heroin together in a Dublin laneway were both dead only hours afterwards, an inquest has heard.
Noleen Bruen (36), Santa Maria hostel, Charlemont Street, and Alan Downes (38), Simon hostel, Harcourt Street, went to a laneway together at Camden Place to take heroin on September 8th last year, gardaí told Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday.
The family of Ms Bruen raised concerns that the heroin may have been "tampered with" in order to cause both their deaths but coroner Dr Brian Farrell indicated that the toxicology report did not suggest this.
After taking heroin together, the pair fell asleep and when Mr Downes tried to wake Ms Bruen but couldn't, he raised the alarm. He asked a passerby to call an ambulance as his phone battery was dead and then returned to his hostel.
"He was very cut up. He said they were in Camden Place and had a TO [ turn-on]. They fell asleep and then he couldn't wake her. He said he knew she was dead, according to Kevin Cooney's statement, a homeless man living at the same hostel as Mr Downes who was not present in court.
Mr Cooney's statement continued that Mr Downes had a number of cans of lager before going to bed "incoherent . . . but he seemed OK". He was discovered dead the next morning.
A postmortem report found that Ms Bruen died from heroin intoxication. A postmortem into Mr Downes found he died from pneumonia on a background of recent heroin use.
Dr Farrell said the pneumonia may have developed after he had taken heroin. In both cases he returned a verdict of death by misadventure.