HEROIN ADDICT ROBS AND BEGS TO FEED HIS DRUG HABIT

DEREK EGAN left his home in Dublin when he was 12 because he could not
get on with his stepfather. He is now 17 and a drug addict. He says he
still keeps in daily touch with his mother.

He should be completing a detoxification programme at St Patrick’s
Hospital in Dublin but never returned to the hospital after getting a
temporary release earlier this year. He admits he has not given up his
heroin habit and is nursing an abscess on his left hand caused by his
drug habit. A relatively clean bandage covers it.

His drug habit has got him into trouble with the law. He has robbed
and begged to feed his drug habit. Yesterday, he sat outside the DART
station in Tara Street begging for money. He wore a clean blue track
suit and had drawn a dirty blanket across his legs.

He was polite when approached and said he did not mind telling his
story.

He did not ask for money and reluctantly accepted the offer of a cup
of tea and a sandwich in a nearby restaurant.

Derek said he never knew anything about drugs until he ended up living
on the streets. He lived for a time in a squat with a number of people
who introduced him to heroin.

He has four brothers and one sister who live at home. He misses
them.

Derek claims he was sent to St Patrick’s as a result of being found
guilty of robbing. He was given a temporary release earlier this year,
but never went back. He says he wants to spend the summer on the
streets of Dublin, but will return to St Patrick’s for the winter.

Derek knows he has no chance of returning home unless he kicks his
drug habit.

He says he will ask Jesuit priest Fr Peter McVerry to get him a place
in a hostel when he completes the detoxifying programme in St
Patrick’s. After that he will work with his social worker so he can go
back home.

He admires Fr McVerry and remembers meeting him at a soup run on Butt
Bridge in Dublin shortly after he left home.

Fr McVerry allowed Derek to stay for a time at a boys’ hostel in
Ballymun.

When he first met Fr McVerry he had only just started using heroin,
but his addition increased and he ended up living rough on the streets
again, begging and stealing to feed his habit.

Derek says he is HIV free but has tested positive for Hepatitis
C.

But, he says, every drug user gets Hepatitis C. He regularly turns up
outside Pearse Street Station with other homeless young people looking
for overnight accommodation.

Derek says he was one of 10 young people who turned up outside the
station on Monday night. Only two of young people got a place to stay.
Derek was one of the eight who didn’t.

He admits to having a bad temper and to being a bit disruptive when he
was 12 and 13. He claims his behaviour has improved so much that he is
now welcomed in hostels that once refused him.