SHE had a heart of gold, but Louise ‘Bubu’ Casey’s death on one of the main streets of the city is a damning indictment of the system and its failures to address the homeless crisis in Limerick.
Those were the sentiments of coroner John McNamara at the inquest of the 31 year-old Limerick woman who was found dead last year outside the disused basement of a house in Catherine Street where she often slept rough.
After hearing the evidence at Wednesday’s inquest, Mr McNamara said it was “horrendous that Ms Casey was found dead on a main street in the city. It is a damning indictment of the system that this happens to someone at the coalface.
“It brings home how real this is”, Mr McNamara said.
Her relatives told the court that number of days prior to her death, Ms Casey was “put out of McGarry House”, where she had been for over six years.
“She wasn’t without her demons or sins, but we were never told why she was put out as she had been there for six years. We still don’t know why.”
Ms Casey’s inquest heard that at 11.25am on November 8, 2016, Garda John Mulcahy of Henry Street Garda Station was asked by the National Ambulance Service to go to 53 Catherine Street.
Ms Casey had been found lying face down and unresponsive in an outdoor basement area often used by homeless people to sleep rough.
She was last seen alive two days before her body was found.
“She often helped me find a bed and was a good friend. We would meet up two or three times a week and I last saw her at the soup run on the Sunday before and we went to McGarry house”, Francis Goggin recalled in a deposition read out to the court.
Mr Goggin said that he left Louise around 10pm as he was sure she was getting a bed. That was the last time he saw her alive.
“Bubu was a lovely person,” he told the court.
On Tuesday November 8, Ger Curtin, went to the basement area at 53 Catherine Street looking for another homeless man, but found Ms Casey. He had seen he in the same position the day before. He contacted the ambulance service but Ms casey had already died.
Medical evidence concluded that Ms Carey was of relative good health, had trace amounts of several drugs in her system but it was the combined effects that proved fatal.
Pathologist Olubunmi Ipadeola said that Ms Casey death was due to cardio respiratory failure secondary to a drug overdose.
Members of Ms Casey’s family who were present at the inquest recalled how “she had a heart of gold and often put people before herself.
“She had a life of tragedy though, buried two children and her father and just tragedy after tragedy,” one relative said while Ms Casey’s sister said that “people could always rely on her in a crisis”.
However, when they questioned why she had been “put out of McGarry House,” Mr McNamara said that was beyond the scope of the inquest.
“The housing crisis in Limerick is appalling and to think that in 2017 you could wake up to a phone call telling you your sister was found dead on the street is horrible,” Ms Casey’s sister said.
A verdict of misadventure was recorded.
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