Drugs project in gang-hit community faces closure

Sisters Jackie and Gwen McKenna set up the Family Addiction Support Network over 20 years ago. Picture: Moya Nolan

A family drug project working across the north-east, including in gang-hit Drogheda, is on the verge of closing after more than 20 years because of what it says is a continuing funding crisis.

The Family Addiction Support Network (FASN) was cited as one of the key local drug projects in Drogheda in both the Geiran report into the drugs crisis in the town and the follow-on Government implementation plan, which was published last month.

FASN, which operates in four counties and helped 250 families last year, is surviving on annual funding of €7,500.

Founders, sisters Jackie and Gwen McKenna, say they have repeatedly told the HSE that the funding would last only until June.

They are also still awaiting money from the €70,000 pledged by the Department of Health under Budget 2021 for family drug support in the north-east and say they are yet to receive funding as a result of the Department of Justice's Drogheda reports.

“We only have so much funding to last until June [2021],” said Jackie. “We said [to the HSE] that if there was no commitment to more funding by June we were going to have to close the centre.” 

Trauma of addiction

The sisters set up FASN over 20 years ago after experiencing the trauma of addiction in their own family.

Gwen said their situation was all the more frustrating given all the publicity and national outrage over the murder of 17-year-old Keane Mulready-Woods in Drogheda in January 2020 and the subsequent Geiran report into the gang feud and related issues in the town, published last March, and the Government’s own implementation plan, published last month.

“It’s absolutely infuriating,” said Gwen. “At this stage, we’re at burnout.” 

She said the Geiran implementation plan was a “great plan on paper”.

Jackie said they were still hoping more funding will come through.

“Too much has gone on, over 20 years, to just pull the door on family support,” she said.

The HSE told the Irish Examiner that a funding review is “being finalised”. The Department of Health said the €70,000 pledged under the budget is “currently in the process of being transferred to the HSE”.