Pubdate: Fri, 25 Aug 2000
Source: Irish Examiner (Ireland)
Copyright: Examiner Publications Ltd, 2000
Contact:  http://www.examiner.ie/
Author: Caroline O'Doherty

SUSPECTED DRUG OVERDOSE GIRL WAS MISSING FOR A MONTH FROM HEALTH BOARD HOME

THE 15-year-old girl found dead from a suspected drug overdose in a city 
guesthouse yesterday morning had been missing from a health board 
residential home for a month.

The teenager, whose name has not been released, was on a garda missing list 
after giving staff the slip and running away while on work experience on 
July 28.

She was found unconscious in the bedroom of a bed and breakfast on Lower 
Gardiner Street close to Dublin city centre yesterday morning. It is 
believed she may have been dead for several hours.

Her 23 year old male companion raised the alarm when he failed to wake her 
and a Dublin Fire Brigade ambulance rushed her to the nearby Mater 
Hospital, but she was pronounced dead on arrival.

Gardai were yesterday interviewing the young man to try to establish what 
happened to the girl in her final hours. He was said to be in a confused 
and incoherent state. Gardai want to find out where she had been staying in 
the weeks since she left the residential care centre in 
Newtownmountkennedy, County Wicklow where she lived for several months.

State pathologist Dr John Harbison last night carried out a post mortem 
examination on her body to establish the cause of her death.

It was thought she may have suffered a heart attack brought on by a drugs 
overdose but it was not known what drug she may have taken.

Her companion is known to gardai as a heroin user but said last night he 
was not being interviewed in relation to any criminal offence. The girl was 
from south County Dublin and the Eastern Regional Health Authority 
confirmed she was being cared for in a centre run by the South Western Area 
Health Board.

"She was participating in a work experience programme and was not present 
at the workplace when the staff arrived to collect her on Friday, July 28," 
the board said in a statement last night.

"We immediately contacted the gardai and her family. We have been in close 
contact with the gardai since then." The statement said the board and the 
staff who cared for her were deeply saddened by her death.

However, Tony Geoghegan of the Merchant's Quay drug treatment project said 
while he was very saddened by her death, he was not surprised by it.

He said services for young drug users were sparse and teenagers were 
reluctant to seek them out because they feared their parents would be notified.

Mr Geoghegan said there was also a growing problem of young homeless 
addicts because there were virtually no hostel places for teenagers and 
none that would accept young couples.

"A lot of these deaths are needless deaths which could be prevented if the 
services were more geared to get out there and provide the kind of help 
that is needed," he said.

According to figures compiled by the Health Research Board, an average of a 
quarter of all drug users attending treatment clinics throughout the 
country each year are between the ages of 15 and 19.
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