Homeless people in Dublin are waiting almost three times longer for a drug and alcohol addiction programme than they were two years ago due to an increase in demand for the service, a housing charity has said.
The Simon Communities said that the average waiting time for its drug and benzodiazepines detox programme in the capital has increased from 30 days in 2017, to 39 days in 2018 and up to 82 days in the second quarter of this year.
The charity currently has 61 people on the waiting list, which it said is a record high.
The Simon Communities also runs a day counselling service, and delivered 2,438 hours in 2018. In the same year, their out-of-hours suicide prevention team delivered 360 interventions.
Speaking at the Simon Communities annual conference on homelessness, Majella Darcy, head of treatment and enterprise in the Dublin Simon, said it is important to ensure the wellbeing of people in homelessness is protected.
“I think the additional new emergency accommodation and people being supported to address addiction as a means of exiting homelessness has contributed to this, and while that’s positive, we need to try and meet the needs of these people,” Ms Darcy said.
Source: Shauna Bowers, The Irish Times, 30th September 2019
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