'Our children are screaming for help'

Many teenagers become homeless because their parents' houses are overcrowded. The new tenements are found in council estates such as those in the Dublin suburb of Blanchardstown, where there are no children's playgrounds and no paediatric or maternity care at the shining local hospital.

These new ghettos lie in the shadow of Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, an enticing place where some local children are banned due to previous misbehaviour. Raiding the skip of broken toys outside Smyth's gets the youngest ones into their first trouble with the Garda.

As many as four families live under one roof. Teenage boys sleep in sheds, fields, abandoned buildings and in each other's houses because they can't take the stress of living at home.

Annette, like Bridget (see above), has had 15 people living in her house - among them many of her 12 children and four of her three daughters' babies. "Chaos" is how Annette describes the situation, with meals being made at all hours, babies screaming, the washing machine going 24 hours a day, laundry festooned everywhere and rows as people invade each other's space.

For two years, Annette's kitchen became a bedroom for one daughter and her two children. Another bedroom was home to a daughter and one baby. A second bedroom was the only sleeping space for some of her sons, a daughter and a grandchild - an arrangement they coped with for two years. The third bedroom was taken over by the younger children in the family, while the parents had the fourth.

The sittingroom was a bedroom for those left over, although one son had to resort to sleeping on a mattress in the hall. When he couldn't take this any more, he became homeless, sleeping wherever he could find a bed in friends' houses. He also left school because he "couldn't take the bitchin' any more".

Included in the mix are a chronically sick baby, a couple of children with asthma, two young boys with learning disabilities, who for years had no schools to go to and have already got into trouble with the Garda, and you can understand why Annette's doctor has prescribed psychiatric medication for her, which Annette has refused to take.

Some mothers on Annette's estate end up in the psychiatric unit at Blanchardstown Hospital. Annette is determined she won't be one of them. If she falls, everyone goes with her.

"All of us mothers are here living with this every single day. Our children are screaming for help [through their behaviour\]. I'd crawl on my knees for my children. They need help not today, they need it yesterday. Tomorrow is too late. The experts are sitting around talking about it, you get advice from social workers who don't even have their own children. Mammy gets blamed - and mammy blames herself . . . I'd love to be able to put on my coat and just go somewhere, but you just keep going because you have to," she says.

Annette's family, where there are no addiction problems, is fairly stable. "Everywhere in this estate there are children who are literally starving. You see little ones outside the pub, falling down drunk [after draining nearly-empty glasses], waiting for their parents to come out and feed them. . . All the important things in life are what we haven't got."

There are youth clubs and other programmes in her area offering young people opportunities, but it seems that they're always overbooked.

Roofs, a voluntary housing agency in Blanchardstown, has assisted Annette in getting accommodation for her daughters in the past three weeks, so overcrowding has eased. Two sons with learning disabilities have got places in special schools. Annette's homeless son has taken a computer course, but cannot find a job.

Although the help is appreciated, Annette feels abandoned and victimised. She fears it is too little, too late.