'I'D BE BACK SELLING HEROIN ON THE STREETS'

"Close the clinic? Sure there'd be riots in this town," says Sarah
(26), reacting to the suggestion of the DFAn Laoghaire Business
Association to shut the local Eastern Health Board addiction centre.

"You'd have no choice but to go back robbing. I'd be back on the
streets selling heroin. No doubt about it."

A drug-user since she was 17, she says the clinic's methadone
maintenance programme has "given me a life". A year ago, all that
mattered was the next fix. She once blew pounds 10,000, earned from a
compensation claim, in three weeks on heroin.

Now her prime concerns are work, family and, above all, creating a
better future for her two children. "I'm living in a flat at the
moment and we're waiting for a house. I'm also looking to sign up for
a CE (community employment) scheme."

Having the clinic on her doorstep, she says, has been crucial to her
rehabilitation. Recently she was helped in securing her first job in
years by being able to collect her daily dose of methadone during
mid-morning lunch breaks.

Moreover, she says, unlike city clinics such as Trinity Court, the
regional facility does not attract dealers "offering you stuff as soon
as you step outside the door". Indeed, her perception of the clinic
could not be more different from that of the local business
association.

"It's very well policed. They've cameras everywhere. If you're
standing down at the corner of the street for longer than five
minutes, the guards will move you on. And that's the way it should be.
I don't want my kids growing up around drugs."

"You can't get away with anything and you don't want to either," adds
David (31), who has been on the same programme for 10 months. "When I
came in first I was giving dodgy urines. I was taking other stuff as
well as the methadone. But they wouldn't have any of it, told me to
come back when I was clean."

Like other patients, he can't understand why anyone would want to see
the clinic closed and wonders about the true level of opposition locally.

"I live about 500 yards from the clinic and nobody has ever asked me
whether I object to it. Yet they say local residents are against it.
Who exactly? Before the clinic opened, dealing was rife in this town.
Is that what they want to go back to?"

The names of the people in this article have been changed to protect
their identities.