THE FAMILY OF Jonathan Corrie, who was homeless and died on Molesworth St in Dublin of hypothermia, have spoken of their sadness about his death.
His former partner Catherine McNeill and children Natasha (14) and Nathan (16) had been searching for Jonathan for a number of years.
On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Catherine explained that Corrie began drinking and “getting in trouble with the law” as a teenager.
“At least John can be warm and not cold on the streets any more,” she said.
She said he did get a lot of help from his adopted parents, but after a spell in America it “started really getting bad for him”.
“Sometimes we’d have our ups and downs but we both did love each other dearly,” she said of their relationship. “When he came back from America he was on drugs and I didn’t realise the seriousness of it at the time.”
She said he used to travel quite a bit but he knew she would be there for him. Catherine also said he tried the best he could at being a parent to his children.
“He was trying to come clean ‘cos he was saying that we’d start a new life, that he’d go up to Dublin and try his best to go on the methadone,” she recalled.
Catherine said the family are “very saddened” at his “tragic” death.
She also said it was hard for him to visit the family in Carlow as he needed to check into the clinic every day.
Upset and devastated
His daughter Natasha said: “We are very upset and devastated but he could have been helped a bit more. Like, they didn’t help like the way they should have helped him. There definitely should have been more done for him, like other people on the street as well.”
She also said that the family tried their best to look for him, but never found him.
Nathan, her brother, said they asked hostels and gardaí for information on Jonathan but were unsuccessful in this regard.
“He just didn’t want to be found because he didn’t want us to see how bad he’d got,” said Nathan.
Catherine said:
I just hope that for the rest of the people that are homeless on the street, that have addictions, that they will be given some attention, to be given help, to get accommodation and more help in hostels, whatever help they can give to them.
An emergency summit on homelessness was held last night.
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