A Kerry-born nun who spent her life helping people affected by addiction found she could not rest easy in her bed in Dublin last weekend, knowing there were homeless people lying on the ground outside.
Eileen Fitzgerald, aged 78, better known as Sr Consilio, founded Cuan Mhuire, a charitable drug, alcohol and gambling rehabilitation organisation, in Ireland 50 years ago.
The Sister of Mercy is now on a mission to provide a place where homeless people with drug habits can be enticed to stay and deal with their problems.
“I came into Gardiner Street on Saturday evening and I met three people just right beside our house, shooting up heroin in desperation,” she said.
She stopped to talk to the group and asked them to pray that she would be able to get a place for them.
Sr Consilio said there was no place for homeless people like the ones she met. They needed somewhere where they could be “enticed” to stay and deal with their drug problem.
“There is a lot more to homelessness. If it was only about getting beds, it would be easy enough to settle it,” she said. “I would love to get help to put a place together for the people on the streets who are suffering from addiction,” she said on RTÉ radio yesterday.
Sr Consilio said she had already found somewhere suitable, but needed someone to help her set it up.
“The hardest thing for me going to bed in our house in Gardiner St was knowing there were people lying on the ground outside.”
Source: Evelyn Ring, Irish Examiner, 23/02/15
Safer Student Nights
eBulletin
Poll
