Church ‘inundated’ with requests for help from families who are ‘not able to put food on the table’

The number of young families requesting help with food and energy bills at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin city centre has increased “significantly” in recent months, according to the church’s administrator.

Fr Kieran McDermott, who is responsible for the church’s pastoral outreach and management, says young mothers are arriving at the church on Marlborough Street to appeal for help, often experiencing food poverty for the first time.

“Some are single mothers, others are not single, but they all have young children and they’re not able to put food on the table.”

“They’ve never asked for help before. You can feel they’re very uneasy about this, and they come in with top-up cards for heat and electricity. You can see they’re exhausted, and it’s a mental exhaustion, which is impacting their health.”

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“The first thing you do is listen. When people come to us individually, giving them the dignity and respect is important, not making them fill out ten forms if they are hungry.”

The anxious appeals for help have come mostly on weekday mornings until about 2pm, Fr McDermott explained.

“It might be because they look at what’s on the table or think of the kids coming home from school and they’re thinking what can they give them. They don’t necessarily ask for cash, they ask for help, a top-up on a gas or electricity meter or a voucher for a food store.”

The poor box at the back of the cathedral, which is funded by donations from mass goers, is used by the parish team to help those in need, Fr McDermott explained.

“The Pro-Cathedral doesn’t deal with food parcels but we have a small modest fund for the poor. We just give. Really no poor box should ever be in credit. If a poor box is doing its job right it’s constantly giving.”

“People have been very generous without any prompting from us, and it helps us in the cathedral to help others. St Vincent de Paul are very strong in the area and they also quietly do great work.”

Crosscare, the social support agency of the Archdiocese of Dublin, of which Fr. McDermott is one of the trustees, began a food poverty service last year.

[ Why is food poverty a reality in Ireland? ]

To date, they’ve had 750 people and families with over 1,000 children looking for help with food support, according to Joy Walsh, manager of Crosscare’s food poverty casework service. And to meet demand, the number of caseworkers at the service has risen from one to three this year.

“We’re inundated,” Walsh explained. “The vast majority are families seeking support, especially people living on social welfare, they only have so much money that they can play around with, and when gas and electricity goes up, they’re struggling.”

She added: “90 per cent of all our calls are from women. Often they take the burden of managing the household.”

At the cathedral, Fr McDermott added that in recent months older people have travelled in from the suburbs, and sought out the anonymity of the city centre church, to appeal for help also.

“I’ve had older people come in with these gas and electricity cards as well, for top-ups, and you know that they’re heading back to a cold house, or they’ve been in a cold house for two nights, and the building is getting colder and they need some heat.”

“Your heart goes out to them and you know that ultimately you’re not solving their problem. We do what we can to help them today and tomorrow and the next few days.”

“It’s the anxiousness that you can feel. When you’re anxious you’re in the moment all the time, you’re living from hour to hour, day to day. It’s different from stress.”

Separately, Fr McDermott expressed concern about the “menacing feeling” around Dublin 1 once dark falls due to “significant drug activity” in the area.

“Dublin 1 is very much an edgier place. Certainly once evening falls and night sets in, there’s a menacing feeling. We used to keep the cathedral open until 5.30pm until a year ago. Now we close it at 4pm.”

“25 years ago, it was heroin and cocaine, class A drugs. Now it’s everything, it’s amphetamines, it’s tablets, and it’s open, it’s not hidden. You can see people dealing and young people in their late teens going around on e-scooters delivering.”

“You can see people in groups of two or threes taking drugs, and they’re not afraid of the guards. The guards might move them on, but they just come back again.”

He added: “There’s a sense that that part of Dublin is in trouble from a safety point of view, there’s an increase in crime.”