Addiction Treatment Services
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-27
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Maria McCormack (SF), Labour Panel

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I acknowledge her work in this area. The drugs strategy is part of her brief. This is an urgent issue for Laois and Portlaoise. It goes to the heart of patient safety, dignity and access to care. I refer to the urgent need for medically supervised detoxification beds at Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. We have no rehabilitation centres for anyone with addiction in Laois. There are no detoxification beds in the county. There are no dedicated detoxification beds in Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. This means that when people in the midlands present seeking help for serious alcohol or drug dependence, they are often left waiting in overcrowded emergency departments or, even worse, discharged into unsafe environments where withdrawal can be medically dangerous and, in some cases, life-threatening.
This is not a policy gap on paper; it is something that families have to live with in Laois and all over Ireland every day. Loved ones finally reach a point where they can ask for help, often at a great personal cost, only to find out that the system cannot safely respond at a critical moment. The gap has been repeatedly highlighted by the ARC Project in Laois, a voluntary, community-led initiative supporting individuals affected by addiction and their families. The ARC Project provides peer-led recovery supports, family spaces and community-based programmes rooted in lived experiences. It works with people at the most difficult points of their lives and sees first-hand how the absence of these detox beds acts as barrier to recovery and, at times, puts people in serious risk.
Following advocacy from the ARC Project, a motion was brought before Laois County Council by Marie Tuohy calling on the Minister for Health to establish three medically supervised detoxification beds in Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise, with seven-day admission pathways and clear links to HSE addiction services and community recovery supports. That motion reflects a strong, growing consensus locally that this gap must be addressed. There is also a public petition signed by hundreds of people in Laois and across Ireland requesting this. The ask is modest; it is just three beds. It is practical and achievable, but three detox beds would provide safe medical supervision during withdrawal, reduce the pressure on already overstretched emergency departments, support families at a moment of acute crisis and, crucially, create a real, safe pathway into recovery, rather than another dead end, and sometimes, in cases, suicide, which is an area we really have to acknowledge and do more work in.
I ask the Minister of State to acknowledge the lack of detoxification beds at Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. What are the plans to address it? I know we spoke before and the Minister of State is aware of the great work that the ARC Project is doing in Portlaoise, and I welcome that she will visit it. That it is important and we would like her to visit Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise and the midlands. We would also like the Minister to visit. We need this issue to get to the forefront and for something to be done about it, because we cannot continue to leave people who need to do safe detoxification with nowhere to turn.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27