A boy determined to beat heroin after seeing brother and sister die

Sitting on the cold steps outside a Georgian house in Dublin's north inner city, the 17-year-old boy takes a drag from a cigarette and painfully recounts his experience battling heroin.

"I'd wake up in the morning and there'd be tears coming out of my eyes, I'd have cramps in my stomach. You couldn't go to the toilet properly. It was just terror," he says, surrounded by a haze of blue cigarette smoke.

"I'd need it four times a day, every six hours. I couldn't go to the pictures with my friends because I'd get sick half-way through it."

After being strung out on heroin for six months, it was the reaction of his despairing mother and sister that prompted him to tackle his addiction.

His 16-year-old brother and 19-year-old sister died as a result of heroin. He was only 10 or 11 at the time. His memory of the impact of their deaths on his family will never leave him.

"I was in care at the time. I didn't even know what drugs were at the time. When I found out it hit me. It was tough on my parents, especially my mother."

The 17-year-old has spent most of his life in the care of the State. At the age of just six months he and other children in the family were taken from his natural parents, who were judged to be incapable of caring for them by health authorities.

He has been in and out of institutions, residential centres and out-of-hours services.

Due to lack of appropriate care facilities, gardaí once charged him for stealing two bottles of nail varnish so he could get a place in Trinity House, a secure unit for young offenders.

"The garda told me it was in my best interests at the time. I was screaming. I didn't want to go there. I can see now it was the best thing for me," he says.

Despite their statutory obligation to provide proper care for troubled children, he has nothing positive to say about his experience with health boards.

"When I was 13, I was mixing with 17-year-olds in care. That's not right. You pick up bad habits. Those things lead to bigger things. When they ask you in for a case conference to express your feelings, they don't listen to you, no matter what you ask for," he said.

It was more of the same in recent weeks, he says. The healthcare unit where he was staying is due to close and the board recommended he be moved to a night-time hostel used by addicts. The boy protested, but says the board wouldn't listen.

Yesterday, lawyers for his local health board said another placement had been found in a drug-free facility.

The boy, who speaks articulately and with sparkling eyes, is hopeful for the future despite the difficult life he has led to date.

"Hopefully I'll get a flat, and a job ... I'm a Traveller. I'm proud of that. I want to get back into playing hurling. I'm taking one step at a time. I'm not jumping ahead. There's a life out there to see ... It's not that bad of a world, is it?"

He looks determined. As he finishes his cigarette, he puts his hands in his tracksuit pockets and nods his head quietly to himself.