Lifeline for families blighted by addiction — but no funding to keep doors open
Jackie McKenna, from the Family Addiction Support Network in Dundalk. Picture: Moya Nolan
After 20 years supporting families traumatised by addiction, sisters Jackie and Gwen McKenna fear they will have no choice but to close up shop soon.
The problem, they say, is funding.
This is despite the Family Addiction Support Network (FASN) being one of the key local projects specified in both the Geiran Report into the drugs-fuelled crisis in Drogheda and the Government’s implementation plan, published last month.
The FASN operates across four counties in the North East: Louth, Meath, Cavan and Monaghan.
“Over the last four years we’ve been in contact with HSE looking for more funding,” said Jackie. “Every year it’s the same: ‘no funding’, so we end up getting €7,508 to run projects across four counties.”
She said last year – amid both local and national outrage at the brutal murder of 17-year Keane Mulready-Woods and the Drogheda gang feud in January 2020 – the project decided it had no option but to go public about its funding struggles.
“Last year, we began to take action, saying ‘we can’t continue on in this way’ and this year we said ‘No, they [State authorities] need to stand up and be counted’,” said Jackie.
She said they contracted research company Quality Matters to do a feasibility report to show the HSE what they did and how the annual funding of €7,500 was not sustainable.
“We only have so much funding to last until June [2021],” said Jackie.
Gwen said they went through the extra work of setting up a limited company, which brought with it extra costs and governance.
“We set up the company so we could attract funding,” said Gwen. “We were jumping through hoops like mad to fit the criteria but they kept moving the goalposts.”
Jackie said last October they sent in a fresh application for annual funding of €138,000.
“That was to deliver the level of services that we are delivering and in January we were told there would be no additional funding and it would be €7,508.”
She said they tried again in February and set out the various options, with €138,000 funding the current level of services and a lower amount providing a limited service.
“The third option was if there was no commitment to more funding by June we were going to have to close the centre,” said Jackie.
She said they’ve had emails and phone conversations and meetings with various people, at different levels, and can’t make progress in relation to funding.
But, as well as their usual HSE funding, other funding options were promised.
In Budget 2021, published last October, the Department of Health announced €280,000 for family support services to develop peer-led family support programmes under the National Drugs Strategy.
Some €70,000 would go to each of four areas: Cork/Kerry; Dublin’s North Inner City, the North East and Donegal.
The FASN has seen none of that money to date.
“We have no information about that,” said Jackie, adding the issue hasn’t been helped by the sudden collapse of the National Family Support Network.
She said the FASN, the South East FSN, the Cork City Partnership, groups in Dublin’s North Inner City and Kildare have come together and set up a steering group with the help of Citywide to try and fill the void.
Then there’s the Geiran Report into Drogheda, which was ordered by the Department of Justice after gangland violence in the town descended into unspeakable depravity with the murder and dismemberment of Keane Mulready-Woods in January 2020.
In his scoping report, Drogheda – Creating a Bridge to a Better Future, published last March, Vivian Geiran said the “abduction, brutal torture and killing” of the teenager had traumatised the town and its people, particularly young people and children.
He made a raft of recommendations across a wide spectrum of areas, including a number specifically in relation to the FASN:
- A review of the funding (circa €7,500) given to the FASN, which it said provided family support, especially in the context of drug-related intimidation work and wider family support for addiction-related issues;
- Training workshops on responding to drug-related intimidation for relevant staff in statutory agencies and community and voluntary sector.
The Government’s implementation plan, published by Justice Minister Heather Humphreys last month, said a HSE review of the funding would be completed by the third quarter of 2021.
It said the drug intimidation training would be conducted by the FASN, the gardaí, the North East Regional Drug Task Force, the National Family Support Network [now defunct] and Louth County Council by Q3 2021.
Again, Jackie said they have been in contact with the Department of Justice on these actions: “The Department of Justice has not come back to us on the implementation report, same as the additional funding of €70,000 – no one is in touch with us.”
When asked have they been in contact with the various bodies set up to actually oversee the implementation plan, they said they hadn’t.
In doing so, they pointed out something that missed national publicity at the time the plan was launched: that there are no community or voluntary representatives on either of the two main implementation bodies.
The top body, the Drogheda Safety & Wellbeing High-Level Oversight Group, is led by the Department of Justice and contains senior representatives from other departments.
Under that is the Safety and Wellbeing Implementation Board, described in the implementation plan as the “core driver and coordinator of change”.
It has an independent chair, a former senior civil servant, with a board of senior "decision-making" representatives from relevant agencies, such as An Garda Síochána, the Probation Service, local authorities, the HSE and Tusla.
But, again, no local representatives.
“There’s no community or voluntary presence on them – they are all State bodies,” said Jackie.
It is only in the third level down, in four sub-groups under the board, that community and voluntary representative bodies will actually become involved.
Gwen said they were recently at a meeting in Drogheda where they were told that they, the FASN, were best placed to carry out the drug intimidation training along with the gardaí.
Gwen said when she asked what was the budget for the training, she said she was told there was none.
“I said that’s not happening,” she said. “Again, a great plan on paper, but what action is coming out of it?”
She pointed out that there was a great relationship between the FASN and senior gardaí in Louth, including with Chief Superintendent Christy Mangan and Inspector Ronan Carey in Dundalk.
Looking at the publicity on Drogheda in the aftermath of Keane’s murder, followed by the setting up of the Geiran report and then the Implementation Plan, Gwen is exasperated at their own predicament.
“It’s absolutely infuriating,” she said. “At this stage we’re at burn out.”
Jackie added: “Everyone [the State] is gone into summer recess. They don’t listen to community groups on the ground. When was the last time HSE ran a department with no money?”
The HSE provided the with funding details in the Louth and Meath area, with FASN receiving €7,508 in funding for 2021, following a funding allocation of €13,508 in 2020.
In relation to the review of FASN funding as mentioned in the Geiran report, and also in the implementation plan, it said the Geiran recommendation was considered and the HSE review and recommendations were “being finalised”.
On the €280,000 announced in Budget 2021 for family services under the National Drugs Strategy, the Department of Health said: “It is intended that coordinated family support programmes in the following four areas, will be developed by the HSE in 2021. Each initiative will be allocated €70,000.”
It confirmed the four areas were: Dublin's North Inner City; Cork/Kerry; the North East and Donegal.
It added: “This funding is currently in the process of being transferred to the HSE.”
On this funding, the HSE said it was “currently in the process of drawing down money from the Department of Health” but added there were “delays due to the cyberattack” on HSE systems.
Separately, the Department of Justice referred to the implementation plan and the implementation bodies that have been set up.
It added that the department had “identified some actions for early implementation” which could be progressed in line with the implementation plan.
It said this included providing funding to the Red Door project in Drogheda and engaging with the HSE on funding to the FASN.
When it comes to talk about their actual work and the need for it, the sisters spoke at length, barely stopping for breath.
“I work with family members that come in through the door,” said Gwen. “They are on their knees, there is nowhere else for them to go.”
Both sisters said it takes a long time before a family reaches the stage of seeking help, knowing from family experience the devastation addiction can bring.
“What would have been abnormal in your home has now become normal, you’ve forgotten what’s normal,” said Gwen.
“You are trying to mind other children and second guess what people are at, especially if in addiction.”
She said parents were terrified in case gardaí find out about their loved one or, worse, if drug dealers who are owed money do.
Jackie said: “Our research shows the range of harms families suffer: worry and psychological stress, threatened violence associated with drug deaths and fear in community, financial burden of the drug user, direct and indirect including child minding, taxi services, appointments.”
Gwen said they know of families who have spent more than €14,000, borrowed from the credit union, on private drug treatment, that only covers a few weeks.
Jackie said the strain debts of a son or daughter puts on family relationships and marriages is massive, including disagreements on whether to pay or not.
She cited one case involving a debt of €30,000, where the couple were at odds over paying. It was paid in the end and the marriage broke down.
In another case, a mother and a grandmother were asked to pay the debt through sexual favours.
In yet another case, a mother sold everything in the house to try and pay another €30,000 debt.
There was a separate case where a mother had started seeking help, but then became very isolated with the lockdown and experienced domestic violence. In the end, she took an overdose.
Jackie said: “There's not a family in Ireland that hasn’t been touched by addiction and the drug culture is here to stay.”
She said they practise a harm reduction model with families.
Gwen said their job is to “bring the family focus back” and that there are “choices and consequences” of their loved one in what they do.
“They [the family] have to look after themselves,” Gwen said.
“Okay, don’t alienate your loved one and encourage them to go to treatment and get help. It is the most horrendous thing for a family.”
“Mothers wake up and their loved one is out. They wake up in pain, in their stomach, and wondering what is the person up to? They also have to maintain their relationship with their partner and other children. Every waking minute, they are wondering where are they, are they okay, are they dead?”
Jackie said it takes a heavy toll on family members' physical and mental health and that some take to alcohol and tablets to try and cope.
“If you have family experience you know. It’s why we set it [FASN] up over 20 years ago,” she said.
She said last year they helped 250 families and added: “In every family, you have six people directly affected, so that’s 250 by 6 [1,500] people, getting help with trauma, access to counselling and ongoing support.”
With their HQ in Dundalk, they have five support groups across the four counties.
“The one in Drogheda has taken off big time, that might be split into two groups,” Jackie said.
It’s now the end of August and the June deadline has passed. So, what are they going to do?
“We are still hoping the HSE and the Department of Justice will get back on to us,” Jackie said.
“Too much has gone on, over 20 years, to just pull the door on family support. We are working away on the ground and it is badly needed. The National Family Support Network is gone and if we close our door, how is the Government going to deliver on family support actions in the National Drugs Strategy?
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