'You wake up with it, you go to sleep with it': Drug-related violence plagues Waterford families 

Relatives dealing with debt are often afraid to seek help, but gardaí and support groups can offer hope

Tributes laid outside the home of Philip and Kim English who died in an arson attack alongside their sons Callum and Jayden in Waterford. File picture: Micheal O Scannail/Press Association 

By the numbers, Waterford isn’t a statistical anomaly.

In 2025, there were 33 reports of drug-related intimidation across Waterford, according to service users from the Drug Related Intimidation and Violence Engagement (Drive) agency. Waterford makes up just 3.2% of the national share.

All it took was the sight of four coffins, two hauntingly small, to upend society’s perception of drug-related intimidation in Ireland.

Kim and Philip English and their sons, 12-year-old Callum and nine-year-old Jayden, died in a fire last month at their home on Birchwood estate, the result of an arson attack that shocked the nation. In further heartbreak, six-year-old Elliot English died at Children’s Health Ireland in Crumlin on Friday. A 14-year-old girl remains in hospital.

For victims of drug-related intimidation in Waterford, the events of Tuesday, October 13, were a harrowing reminder it could’ve been them.

Victims describe their own intimidation stories as cloaked in the shadows, a shame they never wanted to expose to the outside world.

Many say it’s like living in a gangster movie. The walls of their once comfortable, steady lives torn down, forcing them to contend with the reality of the criminal underworld — door knocks, threatening phone calls, shattered glass, and physical attacks.

For Sarah, whose name has been changed alongside other victims who spoke to the Irish Examiner, seeing her son fall into active drug addiction at the age of 12 was confusing.

“I was thinking there’s no one else in this world that has a child that’s taking drugs,” she says.

“It was only when I went into the rooms [of peer-support networks] that I saw there are many more people out there, and it’s shocking. I’m about a year and a half into the rooms now. I went in, and I cried every single week. I’d be stronger now.

“I think the hardest part was the windows getting put in. Other kids were in the house, and I’ll never forget the horror and their screams. That night someone came along. I think there was probably €200 of debt at the time.”

Her son first became addicted to cannabis and cocaine during his first year of secondary school. A stint in rehab saw a temporary reprieve. Then came a relapse buoyed by pills and ketamine.

Debt piled up, and threats to her family’s safety continued.

“There were days we didn’t live. We couldn’t pay ESB bills, couldn’t pay gas bills, couldn’t pay rent, trying to keep these people at bay.”

Her son, who is still legally a child, no longer lives in the home. Experiences like Sarah’s are becoming more common, or at least more visible, according to Waterford gardaí.

Kim and Philip English and their sons, 12-year-old Callum and nine-year-old Jayden, died in a fire last month at their home on Birchwood estate, the result of an arson attack that shocked the nation. File picture

“There’s a higher degree of violence directed at people who may owe debts and for smaller amounts, whereas before there would have been a presumption that there was a large debt before you’d engage in this sort of difficulty,” says Sergeant Deirdre O’Neill, who serves as Waterford’s crime prevention officer.

According to a detective who works in Waterford’s divisional drug unit, Waterford’s drug supply comes from established organised crime groups (OCGs), but is often managed by local criminals.

“We have noticed that drugs are brought to Waterford from OCGs by smaller players. We have also noticed that there are OCGs within the Waterford area that are supplying to smaller people; it all works on that top-down structure,” the detective said.

While it’s impossible to nail down an exact model of operations among the local groups and organised crime groups, he said many local dealers enjoy the trust of established larger groups, purchasing product on credit.

“If you were to buy from one guy on credit, he’s not going to give it to you unless he trusts you,” he said. “How much is he going to give you, how much is he going to risk? It’s the same as any other business, really.”

Privately, other members of the force in Waterford speak about the prevalence of a small group of intertwined criminal families. Sometimes the families are bound by romantic relationships and children, other times by feuds that have resulted in violent deaths.

According to the drugs detective, Waterford has never been a notorious drug hot spot and is similar to other large population centres in Ireland.

Cocaine, like almost all parts of Ireland, is front and centre of a new epidemic spurred by the middle classes. Crack cocaine, a smokeable form of cocaine typically processed with baking powder, is rising alongside uses of potent pharmaceutical opioids such as oxycodone.

Children are being exploited as footsoldiers in the trade, conducting door knocks and making drop-offs on e-scooters. Gardaí say any perception about the drugs trade being confined to particular areas of socioeconomic disadvantage has gone out the window.

In the past year, sentences have been handed out to intimidators following cases on Dunmore Rd, locally considered one of the city’s most affluent suburbs.

“It is across the board, all social standings, all financial standings,” Sgt O’Neill says.

Sergeant Deirdre O’Neill, Crime Prevention Officer at Waterford Garda Station, says there is increasing levels of violence associated with smaller levels of drug debt. Picture: Alex Cunningham

“Part of my role is to go and visit people who want that security advice, and I’ve been to remote single builds out in the country and housing estates and posh housing estates, for want of a better term.”

While the trade seeps into all social classes, those who come from the city’s most marginalised areas attest that the drug trade has become increasingly prevalent and violent.

“When I got the phone call that my cousin Philip and his family were taken in that fire, there were no words,” says Ray Power, speaking before the death of Elliot on Friday.

“Two beautiful kids were taken. Two kids are in intensive care in Dublin, a mum and dad, and none of them ever took a drug in their life. It just shows the level of destruction that’s out there now when it comes to drugs in our country.”

Mr Power is from Ballybeg, an area Pobal’s deprivation index classes as very to extremely disadvantaged. Eight years ago, Mr Power was convicted of assault. He had spent years addicted to tablets he had acquired via drug dealers.

He now spends time working with community drug initiatives and believes there is a lack of support across all sectors of society in Waterford, from families facing death threats to people waiting for addiction treatment. While they wait for access to treatment, their debt often accumulates.

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“[My family] didn’t get the support that they needed. They could have been moved out of the city and given extra care.”

The English family were subjected to continued threats before their killings and yet were unable to move housing.

Rebecca found herself in a similar situation and is currently homeless. After her son’s €13,000 drug debt mushroomed to double its value, she is forced to sleep on the couch of a friend.

Her home was frequently attacked, and her son, the debtor, was subjected to increasingly violent physical abuse that left him hospitalised.

“What people tend to do is, they just go into fear. They panic. They’re trying to care for their loved one. They’re trying to keep them out of trouble,” she says.

“Any time that I handed over money, the next day or that night, windows would be smashed. Once you’ve made an agreement with these people, they will come every day, every morning, to knock at the door. They will lie right outside your house, and you can tell them you’ll have the money, but they still do that.

“This was hell on earth. You wake up with it, you go to sleep with it.”

Her son, like many others, was forced to take work on by his intimidators in order to manage his debts.

“It’s a continuous cycle. I’ve seen young lads being groomed,” she said.

Alcohol and cannabis were the initial source of her son’s debt, but as threats ramped up, he turned to Xanax and other types of benzodiazepines.

Rebecca says many of the debtors’ families often contemplate suicide to permanently silence the torturous creep of debt and threats.

She made a statement to gardaí. Many others don’t feel the same amount of trust in law enforcement, which gardaí say is a big concern.

They point to supports such as Drive, which involves local Garda Inspector Donal Donohue but is designed to take a health-centred focus on drug intimidation, as well as community supports such as the South-East Regional Family Support Network.

Over the course of her intimidation, Lisa felt there was nowhere she could go.

Her experience was one spent in pure isolation- watching hell rain down on her family in a way she thought no one else could possibly understand.

Ray Power said there were "no words" when he heard about the murder of his cousin Philip English. "It just shows the level of destruction that's out there now when it comes to drugs in in our country." Picture: Alex Cunningham

Her experience led her to establish Co Anon, a group designed to help family members deal with the fallout of seeing a loved one slip into addiction. The group hosts anonymous peer support group meetings across the country.

“We try to break the isolation for families. Because it’s the madness you feel. When they come into the room, they hear us, and they hear that we were there and we understand it.

“Because if you go to another family member or friend and say, ‘Oh, he’s doing this, or they’re doing this’, they don’t understand. They don’t understand why you stayed.”

Her experience, the experience of drug-related intimidation felt by other members of Co Anon, which once felt so singular and isolated, has now become the subject of Liveline call-ins, pub chat, and dinner table conversations.

Can the killing of the English family be a cruel catalyst for change? She isn’t so sure.

“I don’t know how it’s going to stop this. I really don’t. I just hope more families reach out and get some help,” says Lisa.

“It’s not going to fix it, but it will help you in that moment. It really does help sharing the problem. It’s such a lonely road because you can’t tell anybody what’s going on or the true extent of it. It’s horrendous. There needs to be a different way. It’s not going to work the way they’re doing it.”

Probation work offers convicts ‘hint of redemption’ reviving communities

At the back of a small estate of terraced homes in Larchville and Lisduggan in Waterford, half a dozen men stand in a laneway exchanging tools in the crisp autumnal air.

They’re hammering a wooden beam overhead, hoping to build a roof that will shield their workbench from the elements.

Around the corner, beds of flowers and tomato plants are sprouting up.

The men working in the lane are recent convicts seeing out their probation service.

Larchville and Lisduggan have historically been regarded as one of Waterford’s most disadvantaged areas, and a community that’s often felt the scourge of the drugs trade at its most brutal.

Mike, the probation officer at the site, says that drugs are often the catalyst for many of the people he now looks after.

“I've got people from as young as they can be, to as old as they can be, here with me,” he says.

“You've got OCGs (organised crime groups). They're everywhere. They might be small, they might be big, but they're enlisting younger and younger people because they're much more easily influenced.

“Once they're in, there's no way out.

“We're talking about very young teenagers who are being used,” says Mike.

While drugs remain in the area, things have been improving according to locals.

The area has become a success story for community activism and engagement, and has taken home top honours at the national Pride of Place Awards in recent years.

Brothers Gus and Joe Fitzgerald point towards the probation works outside of their house as one way to help, a showcase of unity that can help instil purpose in the minds of people on the margins.

They remember Lisduggan’s Central Avenue functioning as “an all-day, all-night drug party.”

On the avenue’s green, there now sits a community garden where bulbs are planted in memory of lost loved ones.

“There were kids coming out to play, and there were needles all over the place,” Joe says.

“It was all shifted on, and the place is lovely up there; it's a beautiful garden, the seeds and everything there, and the plants that were planted, the trees, and they're all blooming now.

Larchville and Lisduggan residents Pat, Gus and Joe Fitzgerald. Picture: Alex Cunningham

“Five years ago you wouldn’t have seen anything like this at all,” Gus adds.

The brothers often join the probation workers, seeking to develop the same relationship and camaraderie they’ve built with their neighbours. 

Mike says that unlike other probation work that is designed to feel explicitly like a punishment, there is a tangible sense of progress for workers. 

“I prefer that the guys and girls think of the probation service not as necessarily a punishment, but a hint of a redemption, where they may see productivity, which is something that an awful lot of these people never see.

“Now there's some, a big percentage, just want to come in, be seen, do the absolute minimum, get their hours, get finished, and go back to exactly what they were doing before, because that's all they know.

“But here they have that good feeling factor."

There is a tacit acknowledgement among Joe and Gus that the drug problem will never be fully eradicated. 

They often see young people known to them, belonging to local families, fly around the local streets on e-scooters with an implicit understanding of what may be taking place. 

Community trust is one angle the brothers hark back to as an antidote to drug-related crime, an issue that's paramount in an area that may have previously harboured poor relationships with law enforcement.

Local police officers tend to agree, and point out that while there are better community engagement programmes than ever, shaking people’s entrenched perceptions is a long process.

“Traditionally in Ireland, the police force, we don't really tell people what we're doing. I think we probably need to get a bit better at telling people what happens in investigations from start to finish,” says Crime Prevention Office Sergeant Deirdre O’Neill.

Local Sinn Féin councillor John Hearne has carved out a role as an intermediary between victims of drug-related intimidation and Gardaí.

“(Young people) get the idea drugs are a glamorous thing,” he says.

“It’s hard to compete with that kind of money and kids."

He compares the killing of the English family in a fire that shocked the nation last month to a "Veronica Guerin moment" that needs to see community engagement ramped up significantly.

“[Drug dealers] have crossed the threshold now. They're butchering children, and we're saying that the State has to deal with that."

Staff 'a critical barrier' for drug team 

Amid increased awareness of drug debt intimidation cases, concern has been raised that the main HSE drug response task force in the south-east has been rendered ineffective due to longstanding staffing issues.

The south-east regional drug and alcohol task force comprises HSE officials, gardaí, councillors, and frontline workers.

However, its co-ordinator has been on gardening leave for the past seven years.

Members of the task force have warned that the regional response to drug debt intimidation has been hamstrung by the absence of a co-ordinator and other staffing gaps.

Drive, the national anti-drug intimidation agency, is administered through these co-ordinators of the regional drug and alcohol task forces.

The south-east task force has been unable to compile annual reports required by the Department of Health, and its meetings have been frequently cancelled.

Declan Barry, a Waterford councillor who has sat on the task force since 2024, told the Irish Examiner: “I don’t think [the task force] is making any real meaningful difference whatsoever.”

Task force members have been provided no information about whether its co-ordinator will return in the position or be replaced.

Stephen Murphy, the acting chair of the task force, wrote to the head of the HSE’s drug policy and social inclusion team on October 15.

In the letter seen by the Irish Examiner, Mr Murphy said a lack of a co-ordinator was serving as “a critical barrier” to the task force’s work in combating addiction issues in the South-East.

“As a direct result of these constraints, the task force will not be in a position to submit an annual report for this period,” he said. “This is not a reflection of commit-ment or effort, but of the operational reality we face.”

Mr Murphy said there has been no contact between the HSE and the co-ordinator, or their union representative, over the past 18 months.

Alarm bells have previously been raised over the task force’s lack of a co-ordinator to implement its work.

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In response to an October 2022 parliamentary question from Sinn Féin TD John McGuinness, the HSE said the co-ordinator had been seconded from the task force to assist with the covid-19 pandemic.

“It is the intention of the HSE to ensure this post is restored as a matter of priority,” the health service wrote.

Mr McGuinness told the Irish Examiner the HSE “needs to openly and transparently explain why they have not dealt with this case”, as the co-ordinator has now been absent for seven years.

“Their response to the parliamentary question was totally inadequate, in that they gave no impression that this was growing into a real difficulty, and they gave no impression that they were going to put anything in place to deal with the absence and to help those others who are working to try and make the project work,” Mr McGuinness said.

Waterford Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane also described the situation as “extremely serious.”

In response to queries from the Irish Examiner, the HSE said it does not comment on individual employees.