Communities working in partnership with the health authorities and local task forces are the key to tackling drug addiction, it was said at the opening of the Beldale View Drug Treatment Centre in the Dublin suburb of Darndale.
Recovering addicts and their parents and friends yesterday joined the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, who is the TD for Dublin North East, members of the Northern Area Health Board, politicians, doctors and religious ministers in welcoming the new centre, which was burnt out twice in an earlier form.
The centre, funded and staffed by the health board but with significant support and manpower input from the local community, has now gained wide acceptance in a community attempting to deal with drug abuse, according to Ms Angela McLoughlin, a member of the drug task force for the Darndale, Belcamp and Moatview estates.
"This has come about because an awful lot of parents in our community were heartbroken and didn't know where to go," she said. City centre clinics were not successful in treating addicts travelling from the area, for a number of reasons, including the difficulties in getting to them.
Members of the community had fought amongst themselves to have the concept of a community-based drug treatment centre accepted.
Fifty-seven people currently attend the clinic, which dispenses methadone and offers counselling.