No funding past 2025 for Family Addiction Support Network

Around 95% of families engaging with a service supporting those impacted by drug addiction have been approached to pay off drug debts.

Yet the group says it does not see a future past 2025 unless funding is secured.

The Family Addiction Support Network (FASN) received €12,600 from the HSE last year, but realistically “needs” €150,000 per annum if it is to continue to “keep the level of service up”.

Jackie McKenna, project manager with FASN, estimates that, in 2022, the organisation delivered 1,440 voluntary hours, the equivalent of investing €702,520 in the communities they help.

The stark situation facing the Dundalk-headquartered organisation, which has satellite offices at Teach Oscail in Cavan Town, was set out when Ms McKenna and Gwen McKenna, Family Support Specialist at FASN, addressed the Cavan Joint Policing Committee meeting earlier this month.

The FASN reps told shocked committee members that they are aware of cases of people entering a “second mortgage” to simply keep serious criminals from their doorstep.

“There is too much fear and too much distrust,” said Jackie with regard to those afraid to report the threats to gardaí. The “challenge”, she added, is “building up” trust between the community and gardaí.

Drug intimidation is not a new issue, revealed Jackie.

“It’s been coming up for years” stretching back to when she was first involved in helping set up Cavan Drug and Alcohol Awareness (CDAA) 20 years ago.

She estimated, citing a report published by FASN, that the addiction of one person impacts at least six others who, in turn, require support to help cope with the “trauma”.

“It’s only the tip of the ice berg,” Jackie said of the number of people who have engaged with FASN to date.

She revealed how one family approached FASN for help and soon after had to leave the jurisdiction for “safety of the children” such was the level of threat posed to the entire family.

“This is happening in communities all across Ireland... on a daily basis,” said Jackie.

FASN reps will be contributing to a ‘Trauma in the Community’ conference due to take place in 2024. They hope to inform local and national policy change. They are due to also meet Government Chief Whip and Minister of State at the Department of Health, Hildegarde Naughton.

FASN is currently involved in a pilot project alongside Tusla and recently presented information to a conference on harm reduction and to the Citizen’s Assembly where they recently debated the potential legalisation of drugs.

But Jackie warned: “We may not see 2025, if we don’t get core funding.”

The funding, she explained, is needed to pay for administration on a “regional basis”.

Gwen explained that FASN provides one-to-one support, counselling, as well as respite care where possible. It also operates educational programmes and a 24-hour helpline.

The accounts they receive “can be harrowing” said Gwen. One recent incident saw a young man pulled from the edge of a bridge. He was brought home to his father. His friends arrived, as did gardaí, and an intervention was staged.

“It was fate that made him call,” Gwen suggested, saying that, at FASN, they engage with the “lived experience” of people. “When someone calls FASN their backs are really against the wall.”

Fine Gael Senator Joe O’Reilly asked if there is evidence to show families are paying drug debt bills.

Responding, Jackie said that some of the situations are “horrendous”.

She referenced a family who took out a “second mortgage” on their home in order to pay off a €300,000 drug debt “without any guarantees their son or daughter won’t accrue that again”.

There were other situations where a person in the throes of addiction might fake a threat to extract money from family or friends and, part of FASN’s role, is to assess what is a “genuine threat” and support the addict and their family.

But Jackie said that around 95% of families engaging with their service have been approached to pay off a drug debt. “It means that families are taking it as normal and our communities do not seem able to say ‘this is not right’. It’s shocking for me to think that this is now ‘normal’.”

Everything, she said, “seems hidden”.

FASN is pushing for a health -led drug strategy that includes intervention methods such as methadone but also education.

On the subject of legalisation Jackie said: “I wouldn’t legalise any drug.”

Gwen added: “We legalised alcohol and alcohol is the biggest killer in Ireland.”

They also recommended the JPC invite to speak with them Dr Sean Redmond, Professor at University of Limerick, whose evidence-informed policy research largely relates to crime issues.

Fianna Fáil’s Clifford Kelly and Patricia Walsh commended FASN’s continued work, both expressing a strong belief that funding should be allocated.

Deputy Brendan Smith stated that even a “small amount of funding in the scheme of things goes a long way”.

Independent Brendan Fay questioned why FASN and SOSAD who fill gaps where statutory services are unavailable out of hours are not better supported. He said what was happening in America in the 1980s regarding addiction is now beginning to happen here in Ireland.

Fine Gael’s T.P. O’Reilly and Sinn Féin’s Pauline Tully also commented, as did JPC Chair John Paul Feeley, all of whom agreed to make representations on behalf of FASN for more funding going forward.