A WOMAN HAS spoken on RTÉ’s Liveline about her family home being burnt down due to her son’s debts to drug dealers.

Lorraine told the programme today that her son has had addiction issues for seven years but is currently in rehab. She said that his drug debts are in “the thousands of euros”.

“We’ve been living with people calling to our property during the night looking for him, threatening us. My son would take a lot of beatings,” Lorraine said.

Lorraine explained that herself and her husband and her two daughters (aged 7 and 9) were living in the house while it being renovated before it was burnt down.

Where we were living was actually burnt to the ground and we were left with mainly what we have to our name now, five boxes of clothes. We were living on site trying to renovate a house and two daughter and myself and my husband are actually living in a room with no window.

“We had actually just slipped back into it and I just heard my husband saying, get out, get out now.”

“We all got out okay. We fell to the ground afterwards when we realised what we lost. Because everything we possessed was there.”

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Lorraine also told the programme that her son had been beaten several times and “left unconscious at the edge of the street”.

She said that other addicts are also being intimidated and that people are too scared to go to gardaí.

“My first reaction was to go find whoever was selling the drugs to my son, that was my first reaction. My second reaction was that I couldn’t kill him, he’s an addict. I’m not ashamed of him in any way, I don’t think anyone who lives with addiction should be ashamed of the family member. They need help.”