Mother cannot understand why State does not provide drug rehabilitation programme.
A 28-year-old man who became a drug addict while in boarding school will commit more crimes when he is released from prison unless he gets treatment, his mother has said.
The man, who is currently serving a five-month prison sentence, first took drugs at boarding school at the age of 14.
His mother, who gave her name on Radio 1’s Liveline as Mary, said drugs changed her son from a “happy, contented, good humoured athletic boy” to a “sullen, aggressive and everything-negative child”.
She told the programme her son has asked to go into rehabilitation as soon as he gets out of prison, but there are no public places available for him.
Four separate assessments by counsellors have shown he is a drug addict who needs treatment, she explained.
However, his chances of getting treatment are “very slim” as there is a six- to seven-month wait to see a drug counsellor.
Instead, his family will have to pay between €350 and €400 a day for a private bed in an addiction clinic, a sum she says the family cannot afford as they stopped paying his private health insurance when he was 22.
Source: Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times, 18/01/16
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