‘Heroin put me in a cell with my son; I had to get clean’

“I was in prison for 20 years, for selling heroin and robbing a bank. I’ve been in all the prisons in this country. I’ve seen a few father and sons in there, the most in Mountjoy.

A former heroin dealer, who robbed a bank at gunpoint to feed his habit, said that meeting his own son in prison forced him to get clean.

He was speaking to the Irish Examiner as part of a special report looking at heroin use in Cork city after fears were expressed at a recent Joint Policing Committee that the city is in the grip of a “heroin epidemic”.