Gerry and his wife, Nora, have trodden a lonely path for three years in their efforts to get their son, Keith (18), into drug treatment for a cannabis and heroin habit.
Like many families in a similar situation, they found it impossible to get the help their child needed. There are only 12 drug treatment beds for under18s in the State, at the Aislinn Centre in Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny.
In the end, Nora and Gerry had to have their eldest son arrested.
Keith is now in Clover Hill prison in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, and has been accepted on to a drug treatment programme. It begins next month.
Sitting in their living-room in a smart Dublin suburb, the couple, both professional full-time workers, tell Keith's story. His behaviour, they say, began to alter before he sat the Junior Certificate. He stopped playing music and football.
"Then during that summer he announced he wasn't going back to that school," says Nora.
"He said there was bullying going on. We thought he might be saying this because he felt he hadn't done a good Junior Cert, but we went along with it. So he changed schools and everything went fine, until Christmas."
Around that time they got calls from the school saying Keith had missed classes and skipped detentions. He became secretive about where he was going and with whom.
"About 12 months ago he told me," says Nora, "that instead of going to school he was going to a nearby rugby field with friends to drink."
Soon he was smoking cannabis.
"We tried to get him into a treatment centre, but they have to want to go in themselves. Naively, maybe, we thought we could just put him in. We tried everywhere, St John Of God's, St Patrick's Hospital. And because he was 16 most places said he was too young." Keith was offered counselling but would not go.
When he left school, Keith worked as a commis chef from August until January. After that he moved through jobs in newsagents, grocery shops and petrol stations, never keeping his wages for more than a few days.
He was "not the greatest mixer" but he seemed to be sociable.
"Reading between the lines, though," says Gerry, "he was difficult company. Because of that awful addictiveness he was not happy with just a few [drinks or drugs]. He wanted more and more."
Keith became increasingly physically and verbally aggressive, making home life unbearable. His sisters (21) and (17) and brother (8) were terrified to come home. They were also embarrassed to bring friends home because of their brother's behaviour. His eldest sister had to move out during exams.
"He ruined a holiday in France when he threw himself out of a window and knocked himself out. He had to be taken to hospital. The house still has scars from the violence.
"We'd be in bed at night," says Nora, "terrified of the sound of the key in the door. We wouldn't know what state he'd be in."
More often than not, says Gerry, he was "out of his mind".
"We tried to lock him out one night and got the Chubb locks changed. We thought we'd get tough with him. At 3 in the morning two rocks arrived through the window, and we had to call the guards. He got bad cuts on his legs and ended up in Tallaght hospital," says Nora.
On another occasion he was found slumped in a local secondary school, taken to hospital and, according to staff there, "should have been dead". He had taken five ecstasy tablets, an unknown amount of paracetamol and a lot of alcohol.
Through all this Nora and Gerry were trying to get Keith into treatment, but as he was unwilling and too young they were left to deal with him on their own. They also got "at least six" psychiatric reports.
"They all said he needed treatment, but that we couldn't coerce him.
"What maddens me is that if he could have been helped two years ago when he was just drinking, it could have been nipped in the bud," says Nora.
In February the couple took out a protection order against Keith. "We were offered a barring order by the judge, but we didn't want to go that far," says Nora.
The protection order meant that if Keith became violent they could call the Garda and have him arrested.
One morning in June, Keith pushed Nora out of his room and slammed the door violently in her face. He left the house before gardai arrived, but was picked up soon after on his bike.
He appeared in the District Court on the following Monday. His parents attended and requested a psychiatric report. No charges were pressed, and Nora and Gerry have been at the court every Monday morning since for Keith's appearances.
Of his reaction to imprisonment, Gerry says Keith was at first "extremely angry with us". However, he has been detoxed, having been removed from his supply of drugs.
With their son in prison, Gerry and Nora again tried to do all they could to get help for him. He has now been given a date to start treatment at a centre in the midlands.
Gerry and Nora do not know why their son got into such difficulty.
"He told us that when he went to the new school he felt kind of out of it and that he didn't fit in. But you never know. I feel he is very troubled, but I don't know why," says Nora.
"He has never been deprived emotionally or materially."
They miss the son they "lost three years ago".
Some weeks ago he was allowed out of prison for a few days. He had put on a bit of weight and "the colour was coming back in his cheeks".
"I took him off to get some runners and clothes," says Nora. "And for the first time in a long while I felt proud to have him by my side. He's a fine, tall, handsome fellow. Yes, I felt proud.
"He has a lot of hard work ahead of him. All we can do for him now is pray him through it."