Speaking to the Sunday Tribune last week, Dr Brendan O'Reilly, who is based in Wales, claimed the support of many other GPs and people working in drug treatment services.

O'Reilly spent seven years working in the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum and in clinics at Mountjoy, Wheatfield and Arbour Hill prisons, and was a GP in central Dublin.

From his experience, he believes the legalisation of heroin is the only option. He said the current situation with heroin users in Ireland is "barbaric" and "utter madness, illogical and unsustainable. . . There is nothing positive at all about it."

The legalisation of heroin as a prescription drug could also benefit patients suffering from terminal illnesses, O'Reilly said. In Britain, heroin, under the name diamorphine, is used as a pain killer, generally for cancer patients.

"One of the big disadvantages to the situation in Ireland with heroin being totally illegal is that it's withheld from people with terminal illness. That raises ethical and moral concerns, " O'Reilly said. "I've used diamorphine in the UK for people having heart attacks, and the person relaxes, it takes away pain. It's just a shame that people can't have it in Ireland.

"I am advocating a proper debate which deals with all aspects of the problem and it must be non-emotional, open and honest. It must deal with production, control of medicines, medical aspects, family and social aspects, a registration system and what happens in prisons and in hospitals to people who are addicted to heroin."

Liz McManus, Labour spokesperson on health, told the Sunday Tribune that she could see a case for prescribing heroin to patients as a painkiller, but not to addicts.

"There is an argument for medications to be used for terminally ill patients, for diamorphine and cannabis to be provided as a medical treatment, in a sterile medical environment. I think it's feasible, " McManus said.

O'Reilly added that establishing a resister for heroin users who could then be prescribed the drug would be "a doddle. . . it could be done in one or two days".

He said the seven deaths from bad heroin in Ireland at the end of 2006 and the heroin-addicted prostitutes in Ipswich murdered by a serial killer were results of "the false war" on heroin. "It [the war on heroin] is wrong, it's flimsy. Why is heroin illegal? As a medical man, I don't know."