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ON A FRIDAY evening at the end of September, as crowds streamed up and down O’Connell Street in Dublin in the autumn sun, a queue was forming.
A group of over a hundred people stretched from the columns of the General Post Office (GPO) down and around the corner onto Henry Street. There were single men and women along with families, there were young students and older people, Irish and non-Irish alike.
Everyone was waiting for the soup kitchen – run by the Muslim Sisters of Éire – to start serving. At about 6pm, volunteers from the registered charity started to unload a white van parked around the corner on nearby Prince’s Street.
Quickly and efficiently, the 10 or so volunteers set up tables outside the front of the GPO and loaded them with hot and cold food: ready made meals, different fruit and vegetables, crips, sandwiches, bottled water, tubs of ambrosia rice, loaves of bread and more.
By 6.10pm, the queue was moving past the tables as the volunteers handed out the food and supplies.
“Especially when I was on the streets, I wouldn’t eat if they weren’t there. You rely on them,” said Sarah*, as she stood nearby feeding her one-year-old daughter.
Sarah used to sleep in a tent on O’Connell Street, and said the soup run and others like it had been an essential lifeline for her.
Now she lives in supported accommodation with her daughter outside of the city centre, but still travels into town regularly for food and supplies that she would not be able to afford otherwise.
“You can get everything here. Bread and everything, sweet potatoes and carrots so I can make that when I get home for her,” she said.
The price of everything has gone up, and there’s a lot more people using it than before.
Sarah is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of people across the country that are not getting enough nutritious food to eat.
In advance of Budget 2024, our GOING TO BED HUNGRY project finds food poverty is a growing problem in Ireland, with experts telling Noteworthy that more State action is urgently needed.
While many people go hungry due to food poverty, it also has a range of negative social and physical effects.
Lower income families may only be able to afford cheaper, ready made or easily cooked food that is high in sugar and salt content. This food has poor nutritional value and can lead to inadequate nutrient intake and higher levels of excess weight.
According to safefood - who promote healthy eating - this results in health complications like heart disease and type 2 diabetes, both of which are on the rise in Ireland.
Food poverty can also have an impact on mental health through people’s inability to participate socially through food, creating stigma and social withdrawal.
For vulnerable families, not having enough adequate food can also have negative effects on parents’ ability to cope as well as on their children’s emotional and physical development.
According to Stephen Moffatt, National Policy Manager with children’s charity Barnardos, food poverty can greatly exacerbate issues that may already be present in the household.
“With families that we would support dealing with this issue, it increased stress, increased anxiety, [with] parents telling us they are struggling to go to sleep, because of worries around this,” he said.
If you have additional issues on top of that – you might already have had parental mental health issues… [or] parental separation tensions within the home – that sort of thing. This only exacerbates that further.
While there is no official indicator of food poverty in the country, the government uses a measure developed by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) which defines it as “the inability to have an adequate and nutritious diet due to issues of affordability or accessibility”.
This measure is captured by analysing data from the Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) annual Survey of Income and Living Conditions. Respondents are asked whether their household is:
In 2021, the latest year for which combined figures are available, 8.9% of those surveyed experienced food poverty, representing 445,890 people. As food poverty is an extension of poverty, it affects people from marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds more.
Over the last decade, food poverty in Ireland peaked in 2013 while the country was still in the midst of the recession driven by the financial crisis. Since then, it fell steadily until 2018 when it started to grow, with a significant spike in 2020.
This spike was likely driven by the Covid-19 crisis and subsequent lockdowns. Those providing services on the ground say that there has been a large rise in people looking for food since 2020.
“We’re actually getting more [people] since Covid,” said Lorraine O’Connor, founder and chairperson of the Muslim Sisters of Éire (MSOÉ).
“Pre-Covid the highest we would hit was about 250 meals a week… and now at one stage the highest we ever had was 650 meals, and those meals are gone within an-hour-and-a-half.
Last Friday, we gave out in and around the 400 mark.
There are other measures of food poverty in Ireland which show the rising strain facing families and individuals in meeting their nutritional needs, particularly in the context of the cost-of-living crisis.
A survey by Barnardos and supermarket retailer Aldi in February found that almost 30% of parents said they had skipped meals or reduced portion sizes so that their children would have enough to eat last year.
Meanwhile, one in 10 parents (10%) said they had used food banks over the previous 12 months, more than double the number from the previous survey (4%).
By most metrics of the survey, the situation has worsened considerably for households.
The ongoing cost-of-living crisis, driven first by supply line issues as a result of the Covid-19 crisis and later by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has also had an impact on people’s ability to afford enough healthy food. This has been exacerbated by historic levels of rising inflation.
According to the results of the survey, more than one in eight (13%) respondents said they were always worrying about their ability to provide their children with sufficient food, compared to 6% in the previous year.
These results are supported by research carried out by safefood, which found that last year some households spent up to one third (32%) of their take home income each week on food.
Prices of all foods have also shot up over the last few years. According to the CSO’s Consumer Price Index from August this year, food prices rose by an average of 8% over the previous 12 months, and by 18% since August 2021.
There have also been huge increases in the cost of household heating and electricity bills.
Stephen Moffat said that the results of the Barnardos survey show that more parents are “going without” themselves as a result of the cost-of-living crisis, and sacrificing their own nutrition in order to ensure their children can eat enough.
“[Parents] can see that their standard of living has diminished, where they have to be really concerned around the amount of food they have and the other essential expenditure as well,” he said.
“If you’re doing that over a consistent period of time… that constant grind can really impact and affect parents’ self-esteem.
“Not being able to provide themselves or their children with what they want in terms of just a basic necessity… that grinds and wears parents down, and they do feel shame for that. And that’s not positive for parents or for a child.”
The government published its Roadmap for Social Inclusion 2020-2025 at the start of 2020, with the goal of “reducing the number of people in consistent poverty in Ireland and increasing social inclusion for those who are most disadvantaged”.
There is a commitment in the roadmap to “develop a comprehensive programme of work to further explore the drivers of food poverty and to identify mitigating actions”.
The Roadmap was published before the Covid pandemic hit Ireland and the subsequent spike in food poverty. Last July, the government published its Report on Food Poverty, which looked into the available programmes, schemes and supports on offer.
The report found that in 2021 the government spent €89 million on measures that “directly addressed food poverty”, while it spent €399 million on “broader schemes that include a food poverty aspect”.
The government includes a wide range of measures in these broader schemes, such as the general Student Grant Scheme (valued at €166 million in 2021).
In relation to schemes that directly address food poverty, that vast majority (€78 million) came from the Department of Social Protection (DSP). From this, €65 million went to the School Meals programme, which funded food for children in 1,506 DEIS schools in 2021. Within this, €24.5 million was specifically used for Hot School Meals.
As of this month, the Hot School Meals Scheme has been extended to all DEIS schools, with the government committing to providing hot meals for all primary school children by 2030.
The working group has also commissioned research to analyse the prevalence, drivers, and actions to address food poverty in two case study areas. While Minister of State Joe O’Brien said in 2022 that this research was expected to be completed by last year, a DSP spokesperson told Noteworthy that research is “expected to be completed shortly”.
The spokesperson also said that a €400,000 pilot programme of appointing caseworkers to people experiencing food poverty started last month in the cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway and will run for 18 months.
“Government is keenly aware of issues in relation to food poverty, and these issues will form a critical input into the wider consideration of Budget 2024,” the spokesperson said.
While government measures have been welcomed by Barnardos and many advocacy organisations, the Association of Childhood Professionals (ACP) – a group representing those working in early years care and education – criticised the fact that this rollout would not apply to pre-school settings.
In response to this criticism, the Department of Children said that all early learning and care services must by law provide some level of snacks and meals depending on the length of time a child attends.
The Department “is currently in the process of developing an additional meals programme for early learning and care services working in areas of concentrated disadvantage”, a spokesperson said.
As for the remainder of the DSP spend, close to €10 million went on a Meals on Wheels programme, employing people to provide meals to older or disabled adults across the country.
Though, as the National Meals on Wheels Network points out, the Meals on Wheels service is not underpinned by legislation or specific funding, meaning the service is not guaranteed for people.
“Currently, there is no legal entitlement to receive or obligation on the State to provide meals-on-wheels to older people,” the network says on its website.
As a result, there is no clear direction regarding who should be responsible for the support and development of the sector.
The remaining €4 million of the DSP funding for food poverty in 2021 came from the European Social Fund Plus, an EU-wide programme aimed at addressing the most basic needs of highly disadvantaged groups.
Stephen Moffatt of Barnardos is supportive of recent government initiatives to tackle food poverty, but said that more needed to be done.
“The Free School Meals programme is really, really excellent. What’s happened over the last number of years, rolling it out, has been really positive,” he said.
They need to continue to respond to children directly, what their needs are, make sure that what’s there is as nutritious as possible, and that children are getting as much as they can out of it.
Moffatt said the government should also look into providing meals in a community setting for lengthy periods, like during the summer holidays, when children are out of school.
While he welcomed some of the measures put in place, Moffatt said that families are feeling more pressure as food has become more expensive and household bills have skyrocketed in recent years.
“Obviously, a lot of this comes back to income,” he said. Barnardos has been focusing on issues that parents have highlighted to them – mainly “just not having sufficient income to cover the food costs for their entire family,” he added.
“Which means obviously, themselves as well, not just their children.”
Moffatt also said that social welfare payments needed to be increased in line with inflation.
Barnardos is calling for a €25 increase to the standard social welfare payment in Budget 2024, as well as a rise to the Increase for a Qualified Child (IQC) by €15 for over 12s and €10 for under 12s.
—
Back outside the GPO just over a week ago, MSOÉ volunteers worked hard handing out food as the queue moved slowly forward. Nearby, Sarah fed her daughter and watched as more and more people joined to be fed.
“The amount of people using it is unreal, but because of her I don’t have to wait in the queue,” she said, smiling down at her daughter who had the small wooden spoon she was being fed with clamped between her mouth.
“I thought it would put off a lot of people having to queue but sure look how many people have been queuing here for the last hour… That shows how much they need it.”
*Sarah’s name has been changed to protect her identity
Is the State tackling food poverty?
By Cormac Fitzgerald for Noteworthy
Noteworthy is the crowdfunded investigative journalism platform from The Journal. This project was proposed and funded by you, our readers, with support from our investigative fund.
What’s next? We want to uncover how difficult it is for disabled people to secure a home. Help fund this work >>
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Collins must be turning in his grave at what the likes of Haughley , Reynolds , Ahern , Kenny have done to this country.
You forgot Cowan
Who the hell is Cowen? , I remember BIfFO .
More ashamed of the misery that the IRA brought on his country.
Agreed – the IRA have made national pride toxic and have drenched the tricolour in the blood of children and innocents.
Definition of cool
Having a smoke while your man waves a gun in your face
Pure class!
Legend of a man
I think if that had of been 60 years later in Belfast and had of been Gerry Adams I don’t think people would of been saying things like “legend of a man” or “great bit of history” some people south of the border look at Irish history through rose tinted glasses…
What are your political views David?
Or if it had been 80 or 90 years later and Saddam Hussein had been talking.. You can change the context for anything, doesn’t mean it’s accurate!
Adams is No Michael Collins.
Well said David spot on.
Pathetic…….and typical.
Your right Tom, Adams is no Michael Collins.. After the Good Friday Agreement Adams didn’t order the assassination of his former comrades the way Collins did after the treaty was signed.. Collins death squads operated from oriel house and he personally appointed Men to murder his former comrades as he seen them as a threat.. Take Noel Lemass for example, abducted and tortured to death. His right foot was hacked off at the ankle and was never found.. A gruesome murder that would be similar to murders that happened during the troubles. However the men that carried out these killings south of the border are called “Heroes” but north of the border their called “Terrorists”
There were atrocities on both sides, Collins was commander in general of the FREE STATE army, the others you allude to were traitors of the state and regarding your comparison between Collins and adams sure adams was never a member of the IRA so we are informed on an ongoing basis by the shinners so he would not have been in a position that Collins was and anyway likening adams to Collins is contemptable.
@Doc Michael Collins was the Traitor…
Well said David spot on there be too many people stuck with the free state mentality even to this day.
@ david garland
Qualify that statement.
Gerry Adams stood on the side of the oppressed people of the north. mick sold us out……
thank you David…..the free stater don’t like to be told that they betrayed the people of the north…..
Do you actually think Collins sought the partition of Ireland? The man had fought the British empire and there no one in a better position to know what could be gained or lost from signing the agreement. It was, as he said himself, “the first real chance for Ireland”. The anti Treaty forces, Noel Lemass among them, took up arms against the democratic choice of the majority of irish people; they were the traitors. The brutal killings that followed were horrific, and many just plain murder, but don’t cod yourself by suggesting that they were anything but traitors.
@ jean martin
ml. Collins had no choice, he knew anything else would mean the slaughter of our people, that Traitor dev knew what the outcome of those meetings would be and would not go forcing Collins to go, being the patriot he was he went and got the best deal for this country at that time while still being aspirational for the future, Dev like all subsequent fianna failers, pardon the pun were nothing but sleeveens and you sir are the same.
You might want to read about Collins you ll see he was arming ira men in the north to continue the fight up there Collins was never going settle for less then the full republic the British were going invade if he did nt deal with the anti treaty ira remember the reason the ira split was dev s doing not Collins dev accepted the treaty after the civil war as dev said him self in time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins and it ll be at my expense
Spot on Enda. That’s why the British had him assassinated, they knew he was going to continue to be a major thorn in their side. They were very clever about it too. Most people believe he was killed by Anti-Treaty IRA, when in all likelihood he was murdered by a British agent, a “sleeper”. Collins was biggest test the British ever got, but they got their man in the end. They always do.
His death occurred during an IRA ambush, at Beal na mBlath, that much is a given. However, the circumstances surrounding the delivery of the fatal shot are far murkier. I genuinely have any amount of detail about this, but people mightn’t be interested and I’m a slow typer so my arm could fall off. All I’ll say is that there was a guy sitting beside Collins in the touring car that day. This guy had been in the British secret service in the WW1. Then he joins the IRA and becomes very close to Collins. After the madness here, he disappears into obscurity, only to emerge again, working for the British secret service in WW2.
Emmet Dalton if anyone wants to check it out. Mind you I’ve googled him before and info is scant. Surprise surprise.
Sonny o neill did admit to Collins brother johnny that he fired the shot that killed Collins also read after as he was leaving the ambush site he said to his ira comrades he had dropped the tall officer but as you know no one knows who shot Collins for certain
Info is nt scant about dalton he retired from the army because he did nt believe in executions as for the sleeper theory that mostly relates to a ex British solider jock mcpeack who was on the machine gun on the armoured car which kept jamming he deserted the free state army after the ambush and took the armoured car slive na mban with him to the ira
The ambush occurred as dusk fell, Collins fatally wounded at the end when it was nearly dark. No IRA man delivered a direct shot. Common theory is a ricochet. Details of cover up would suggest otherwise. Oliver St John Gogarty (yes him of Temple Bar fame) did the autopsy, and concluded that the wound was caused by a Mauser handgun (which Dalton carried) and not a rifle, which the IRA ambushers were using. So many other things. For example, they exhibited his hat in a museum for years, the one he was supposed to have been wearing that day. Turns out recently they discovered this hat was the too small for Collins. It had a bullet tear which supported the ricochet theory. It was a sham. Our two greatest leaders of the last 1000 years, Brian Boru and Michael Collins, both slaughtered by sneaky assassins.
What’s the problem with the view of David ?
Yeah the hat was a fake it was to small heard one story the hat he was wearing that day was found by a local farmer because it had brain matter still in it he buried it as for being shot by dalton Collins was out ahead of every one in his convoy dalton was still at the armoured car well behind Collins when Collins was shot a small wound to the front large at the back showing the bullet came from in front of Collins it’s also said a dum dum bullet caused the damage which the ira men were using in that ambush
As for the autopsy there is no records of one being done
No, Dalton was on his shoulder throughout the whole thing. He was taken out. He was gonna be a nightmare for them. Again. He supported the North, his organisation was very strong in Armagh and Down.
Dev was traitor look were we r now 98 yr later mick wanted a utd eire not 6 counties short
Wow..great piece of history there. Looks like he was firing into the crowd too.
Thats a fantastic post Christine. Thanks!
These are brilliant articles, what cool footage! Black and white and silent almost makes it better, resonates more. I agree about your man being a legend.. having a toke whilst the boys wave guns, like something out of a western.
If you farted beside Enda Kenny,
He’d Sh1t himself……
I did once, and he did :)
It was a little Sh*t and it became better known as Alan Sh*tter.
That’s exactly what happened. You must have been there too!
If only we’d had him for a bit longer…. Some man.
How can u twist the life of a man who spent the short time he had furthering the betterment of this country. Sure,now we can look back from our armchairs and say he did this when I would have done this… The man did what he thought was best for the country at the time and in that position.
Great Man – died far too soon. Pity he signed up to partition and fired on his own people to start the civil war with guns given to him by the British. Shame that his descendants in Cumman Na NGaedhal and Fine Gael thought that ‘stepping stone’ meant to uphold and enforce partition and become advocates of the status quo – shame they did not give enough consideration to the boundary commission in the years after the treaty as was Collins’ want… shame that it was Dev and not he that took the largest political office in the land.. and would hopefully not have allowed the church to gain such a stranglehold on the state and a bloody shame that yet again the British out-maneuvered an Irish delegation to the detriment of the sovereign Irish nation.
Pity that others decided that murdering people was good because…they didn’t like the words “stepping stone.”
Imagine Enda Kenny trying to talk to a crowd that size. He would need to wear a nappy
Pissing foreigners again, no idea what they are talking about!!!!! :-D:-D go troll somewhere else!! Michael Collins always will be a legend!!
Does any recording of him speaking exist? The technology was available at the time. Just wondering
No there s no recording of his voice
You can see his birthplace from our front door. Makes me so proud.
What would the big fella make of the state of Wallace and Flanagan , in the place he built with blood and sacrifice, sneering all the way to the bank. What have we turned it into .
Out of all the TD s you pick Wallace and Flanagan why them two
He would probably have shook the hands of Wallace and Flanagan for not bowing down and licking ass.
Pickart … Unwise to comment on stuff you do not comprehend
Devilera sold the Irish up the river, fast forward 90 yrs twiddle Dee and twiddle dom aka Adams and mcguinness have done the same to the nationalists up the north, sitting I’m the dail and other parliaments, the hero’s like Collins and his 6 patriotic comrades also the rest of men and woman who faught to get rid of the British who destroyed Ireland and caused s lot of death and poverty for the people of Ireland north and south wud turn in there graves. Being from a Catholic from Belfast iv seen first hand wat the British ar capable of doing and also hiding there atrocities, granted the ira have also done some also but they were the only protectors we had cause believe me when ur a Catholic u we’re a 3rd class citizen and we’re tortured by the British!!
Great video pity its in black and white tho
Lol
On this site you will experience abuse if you do not support certain Irish killers. This is a result of a combination of classical conditioning and cognitive dissonance.
That does not make any sense pickart, first of all re: cognitive dissonance, that’s a misnomer as there is no one here who is ambivalent about their views and regarding classical conditioning, do you actually know what it means in the context you are attempting to place it in. give up the amateur psychology lesson, people on here are a lot smarter than you think, well most any way.
I’ll be your friend Patrick, i could always do with another ass*ole in my life.
@Pickart I take back the spotty teenager comment. Your recent comment would suggest you’re probably a failed college student as you try to introduce nonsense psychology. You’re trolling and you know it.
@celtic Pickart Solny is an anagram of Patrick Lyons, P lyons is the tit who regularly comments here making an eejit of himself, he pretends to be a Northern Ireland protestant when in fact he’s more than likely an irish catholic locked in his room trying to figure out how to interact with other humans in the only way he knows. Same shite comments now day in day out for the last two years. What a tool.
Well spotted Chief!
No pickart you ll. suffer abuse because your an idiot
A classic pseud.
Yea eye of the tiger there chief.
@pickart I wouldn’t mind having a debate with you about the rights and wrongs of Irish history but your arguments are unsubstantiated rants.
Chief – you sir, are legend!
Collins, just another terrorist who should be confined to the dustbin of history.
Would ya look at trolly trollerson over here.
Pickart, by that rationale George Washington is a terrorist and the 4th July is dedicated to the acts of terrorism.
Trolling like a troller who’s just won first prize in a troller competition for being the trolliest
@Pickart Please give your definition of an Irish Freedom Fighter. I bet you’re some spotty little teenager who does nothing but Troll all day
In the national trolliest championship
My idea of somebody who ‘fights’ for a better society would be people like Feargus O’connor or Henry Popjoy.
Pickart, is that even a name?
Pickart that’s a disgraceful comment, the only pity is that Collins life was cruelly cut short, a different Ireland would have resulted rather than the Ireland influenced by that traitor Dev.
Ian. Iys patrick lyons resident troll. Used to troll here with a butchers apron as his profile pic
His name is Patrick !?!?
You can smell the queen lover’s!!if the troll’s knew their history dev sent him down the river without a paddle shower of Muppet’s.
Does anyone know what part of Cork city this video was shot in?
You can see the National Monument on the corner of the Grand Parade and South Mall briefly in the clip. I imagine he was speaking somewhere on the Parade
@garland ur a troll Ireland would of been a better place if Collins had of lived!!so go back under the rock you crawled out from clown.
Wonderful to see the huge number of women who were there
This is the Grand Parade in Cork
If people actually did their history, they would figure out that Ulster Unionists wanted to remain part of Britain. As the Unionists had way more control in Ulster than any other province in Ireland, as well as being literally up in arms (they received arms from Germany) at the thought of a free Ireland, they were willing to kill to stay part of Britain. Now the British government were willing to turn a blind eye on para military activies in Ulster. When Michael Collins went to the talks, his aim was a 32 county free Ireland, which clearly he didn’t get. He even stated he signed his death warrant as nobody would be happy about a 26 county Republic. Michael Collins was NOT happy with a 26 county Republic.
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