peter
“It’s so cold these days that I get a strange feeling every time I enter a building and the warmth of the place hits me. It is not a pleasant feeling. It reminds me of when my daughter chose to beg on the streets even tough she had a safe and warm home to stay. She used to come home shivering from the cold and there were times when she disappeared for days and I had to pay people on the streets to get information on where she was. One day, a man sitting on the bridge told me that she was pulled out from the Liffey earlier that day. I still can’t remember how I got to the nearest Garda station, but thankfully I found out it wasn’t true. It reminds me of when she told me that she was pregnant and knowing that she was injecting cocaine every day of her pregnancy. When the child was born, he slept for 3 weeks before he opened his eyes but he was born healthy. When my grandson was almost 2 years old, my husband died in a road traffic accident and Fiona took it very badly. Four months later she died from a methadone overdose. She was only twenty years old. I lost half of my family in the space of four months. I still can’t understand how or why she preferred to stay outside in the cold being pregnant, just to be able to beg for enough money for her next hit. How much do you have to want that drug? One time she stayed clean for six weeks when she was waiting to get into a residential centre. Then when she got in, she lasted only about three or four days. I never gave up on her, I always thought this would be it and she is going to stay clean, finally. She tried to do it so many times and I honestly think she wanted it too.”
#SaferFromHarm
– This interview is part of a collaborative campaign between Humans of Dublin and the Ana Liffey Drug Project to raise awareness of the importance of medically supervised injecting facilities in Ireland. For more information, please visit Ana Liffey Drug Project’s Website