The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is Ireland’s independent national human rights and equality institution. Our purpose is to protect and promote human rights and equality in Ireland and to build a culture of respect for human rights, equality and intercultural understanding.

P.29 Experience of service users who access opioid treatment services

In June, the Commission invited the HSE to carry out an Equality Review focused on three identified clinics that provide addiction treatments (two of the clinics are in Dublin with the other located in Carlow). The Equality Review focused on the manner in which drug testing was carried out in these clinics around the direct supervision of urine samples by clinical staff, and the implications of this reported practice for the service users’ dignity.

The HSE provided an Equality Review report on 20 December, which set out that:

1. There was a change of practice in the carrying out of drug testing which has seen direct supervision of urine samples replaced with non-direct supervision using ‘Point of Care Test Kits’.
2. Each clinic had progressed or was progressing to non-direct supervision of urine samples in routine clinical practice. In its Equality Review, the HSE stated that all three identified clinics had taken the issue of direct supervision of urine sampling very seriously in terms of service user dignity.