History of substance abuse in almost 9 in 10 deaths of homeless people

RTÉ News​

20-05-2025

The CEO of the Dublin Simon Community has said society is failing vulnerable homeless people and a cross departmental government strategy must be developed to tackle homelessness.
Catherine Kenny said the issue is currently siloed across various departments without joined up thinking.
Figures from the Health Research Body have revealed that almost nine in ten people who died while homeless had a history of substance abuse (the data examined the deaths of 128 people in 2021).
Ms Kenny said it is easy to depersonalise issues through figures but these were people at their "most vulnerable, experiencing trauma" whose final days were marked by pain, isolations and systems that failed to catch them.
Homelessness is complex, she explained, and dividing the issue across different department makes it seem like it can be resolved through a housing or health response.
"They're lonely, they're frightened, they're traumatised. We need the housing. We need the social security. We need the health - both physical and mental health services - working collaboratively and across the board to address the issue.
"However if you have someone only focusing on housing it gets lost in the crisis that we're in in terms of homelessness," said Ms Kenny on RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
Substance abuse prevalent within 2021 death rates
The research carried out by the Health Research Body shows that most of the deceased (85.9%) had a history of substance use.
Of those with a history of substance use, 53.6% were known to have alcohol dependence.
Heroin, cocaine and benzodiazepines were the most common drugs used, with heroin accounting for 62.8%, followed by cocaine at 55.1% and benzodiazepines at 29.5%.
Some 82.4% of the 51 people who used drugs only, not including alcohol, had a history of taking various types of drugs.
One in five (21.1%) of the deceased had ever injected drugs, with 37% of these injecting at the time of death.
Dublin was the county that saw the most deaths, with 58.6% of deaths recorded there.
Poisoning and non-poisoning related deaths
Opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol and cocaine were the four main drug groups relating to poisoning deaths in 2021.
Opioids were linked to the highest number of deaths at 82%, followed by benzodiazepines at 68.9%.
Alcohol and cocaine contributed to similar numbers of deaths, at 37.7% and 36.1% respectively.
Methadone was involved in regarding the deaths of 84.6% of women, which was significantly higher than 43.8% of men. Those figures combined accounted for 52.5% of deaths, making methadone the most common drug implicated in poisoning deaths.
There were 67 non-poisoning deaths with 55 (82.1%) among males and 12 (17.9%) were among females.
Medical causes of death, mainly cardiovascular, were recorded for 70.1% of non-poisoning deaths.