A mother whose son died from heroin addiction has told how she is still paying off her son’s massive debts ten years after he died.
Annette Kinehane, from Tallaght in Dublin, was left devastated after her 32-year-old son John was found dead with a needle in his arm in the toilet of a pub in January ten years ago. He had just become a dad eight months prior to his death.
Annette will feature in tonight’s Gaelic in the Joy on RTE One where she tells convicted offenders in Mountjoy prison how she was threatened with a hammer and a gun by debt collectors to pay her son's drug debts in a bid to raise awareness about the impact of their crimes on innocent families.
READ MORE: Prison officers refused to take part in GAA game after 'taking offence' to Rory's Stories sketch
Speaking to co-host Philly McMahon, she said: “I’d say when he was 17 or 18, he started messing with hash. Then it progressed to tablets. He never had any money for anything.
“And then I started finding bars of chocolate in the fridge with no paper on them.”
She confided in her youngest daughter about what was going on before her daughter then told her that he was doing drugs.
“I must’ve been the most gullible mother in Dublin. I believed everything he told me.”
Annette recalled the day she was first threatened by a gangster at her front door over a €5,000 debt her son owed.
“And then one day I got a knock on the door and this lovely chap with a hammer told me that he was here to collect a debt. I said that I didn’t owe any money.
“He said my son owed €5,000 and I had three days to sort it or he would be dead.
“And that’s when I knew we had a bloody big problem. “
She then tells viewers about another instance where she was threatened with a gun over another €15,000 loan.
“So, off to the credit union, got my loan, paid it out. I had a guy with a gun – he just showed me his gun – and said your son owes us €15,000. It spiralled out of absolute control.
“I couldn’t keep this up. My daughter’s inheritance money from their dad, I need that to pay somebody. At one stage I had the Provident, the credit union, two credit cards and a bank loan.
“I was working 12-hour shifts in a hospital to pay these people.
“I remember I got him in that corner one day and he was six foot and I beat the head off him.
“I’m not a violent person but I couldn’t take anymore. Do you know what he says to me, ‘You’re killing me buzz’.
"Everything...we tried everything. But heroin was stronger.
“The day he died, I was after coming from work. It was two police and saying that they need to inform you, your son has died.
“All I’ve left is pictures, memories and ashes. I’m still paying the bank back and my son is dead ten years in January.
“I’d love to sit down beside one of them and ask them ‘was it worth it, the misery you caused me and countless other parents.’”
In tonight’s second episode of Gaelic in the Joy, Philly and Rory O’Connor feel the Mountjoy prisoners are not taking responsibility for their actions which led them to being incarcerated in prison in the first place.
Philly decides to bring Annette into Mountjoy to meet the team and to give them some uncomfortable home truths.
Annette tells prisoners: “He was 32. He died with a needle in his arm in a pub on a filthy dirty toilet. He was there for five and a half hours.”
Meanwhile, with discipline continuing to be a problem, Rory brings an old friend in to drill some discipline into them - Ultimate Hell Week chief instructor Ray Goggins.
With the team struggling to find any more players in prison Rory has an idea on how to recruit more players, but he needs the governor to give the team temporary release for an afternoon.
Philly and Rory have organised a challenge game against a team of ex-prisoners and staff from the Solas care after-prison group. Could these ex-prisoners be the perfect role models and teammates for Mountjoy's Mean Machine?
Gaelic in the Joy airs tonight 9:35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
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