One of the goals of the State Laboratory is to provide a forensic toxicology service to the State.

The State Laboratory provides a forensic toxicology service to assist Coroners and the State Pathologist to investigate the causes of unexpected death by analysing post mortem samples to confirm the presence or absence of ethanol, legal and illegal drugs and other toxic substances. The levels of substances detected are also quantified.

Since early 2015, the State Laboratory has developed and implemented an analytical strategy, using high resolution mass spectroscopy (HRLCMS), that allows post mortem toxicology samples to be screened for previously “invisible” designer drugs outside the Laboratory’s traditional defined scope of testing. This novel analytical approach is now in routine use with suspect samples being screened for all national and European NPS alerts. This approach also allows for the retrospective analysis of data without physical sample reanalysis. This work has supported the Irish Coroners Service in solving death investigations that previously could not have been satisfactorily concluded.