Distraught mother describes terror after house burnt down over son's drug debts
A distraught mother has spoken about how her family has been living in terror due to threats from drug dealers that her son owes money to.
Lorraine said that her family have been living with her son's drug addiction for five or six years now and that things escalated a month ago.
Speaking on RTÉ's Liveline, Lorraine said that the house that her family were living in was burnt to the ground.
Lorraine, her husband and two daughters, aged seven and nine, were in the house when the incident happened.
"We had actually just stepped back into it and I just heard my husband saying 'get out, get out now'. We all got out ok," said Lorraine.
We fell to the ground afterwards when we realised what was lost because everything we possessed was in there.
Her two daughters were left terrified by the fire and Lorraine said it took her a long time to get them to sleep at night.
Lorraine said that her son had received beatings over drug debts in the past which have left him unconscious by the side of the road and with head injuries that caused seizures.
Following the fire, Lorraine tried a 'tough love' approach.
His options were that he either stays on the streets and kills himself with his drug habit or else start realising that there is help there and that I love him no matter what but I can't have this affect my daughters for much longer.
After taking this approach, Lorraine said that her son was found in a bad way, crying that he had lost his family and had planned to take his own life.
He is now receiving treatment in a rehab clinic.
Lorraine is hopeful that this is a turning point for her son as it is the first time that he has asked for help.
According to Lorraine, her son was taking "up to 50 pills a day...of anything, the last ones I found were actually medication that he was sold that was for a bleed on the brain, for someone who was after having a stroke.
"And then there would be cocaine on top of that and then there would be methadone on top of that."
Lorraine says that she understands that addiction is an illness and that she will never be ashamed of her son.
As a mum, I just can't let go of my son and I hope every day that he will get better and he will have the tools to teach him to live a some way normal life without drugs.
"I can only hope for that every day and hope that my two daughters will never touch a drug from what they have seen."
You can listen to Lorraine's full interview below:
