In the five months since leaving Ireland, Jerzy Podlesney has regularly thought about the Polish men he left behind on the streets of Dublin. Like him, they were homeless and addicted to alcohol, and for years, their daily routine following a similar pattern.
“I used to get up at about 6am and would hang out with friends until around 10.30am, waiting for the off-licence to open. I prayed each day, ‘Please let them open the shop for me.’ And when they did, I started drinking.”
Podlesney spent his afternoons sitting in Dublin’s Wolfe Tone Square, watching the busy Henry Street shoppers as he drank cans with Poles and Lithuanians. “We talked about everything and nothing, just small talk, silly things. That’s why I’m talking to you now, because I have pity for those men who are still sitting there, dying there.”
Podlesney is speaking from the Polish city of Poznan where he now lives in sheltered housing provided by the Barka Mutual Help charity. Despite living in Ireland for two decades, he cannot speak much English and is interviewed through an interpreter.
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He is one of the 137 central and eastern Europeans repatriated from Ireland to their home country last year through Barka. The Irish leg of the international Barka network, which is funded by Dublin City Council, seeks to help individuals reconnect with their home country and reintegrate into society. It also addresses homelessness and substance abuse among migrants.
Last year, the charity helped 108 men, 28 women and 14 children, including eight families, return home. Nearly half of these were either Polish or Romanian. People from the UK, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Czechia were also repatriated, according to Barka’s annual monitoring report.
The charity has repatriated more than 1,100 people since its Irish office was established in 2011 in response to a rising number of Central and Eastern European migrants sleeping rough, struggling with homelessness and substance abuse. Originally established in Poland in 1989, the charity also operates in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and Iceland.
Like tens of thousands of other Poles, Podlesney moved to Ireland in 2005, the year after the enlargement of the European Union, hoping to find work and build a better life. He left behind a wife – the couple divorced shortly after his departure – and four children in the city of Rzeszow in southeastern Poland.
He spent seven years working in construction and then started cash-in-hand work assembling Polish-produced wooden cottages around Ireland. He lived in Tallaght, had a girlfriend and was content with his life.
He had struggled with alcohol addiction in his 20s but had been sober for more than a decade when he moved to Ireland aged 40. However, with no English, he did not attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and his reliance on alcohol re-emerged.
“When I was still working I never drank in the morning, my first drink was always after work. But then I’d drink 10-12 cans, sometimes 15, daily. Colleagues from work used to invite me out to drink with them; sometimes they brought vodka. There’s a Polish expression they used – ‘if you don’t drink, you’re cheating’. I didn’t have any support groups, I didn’t speak English. I was lost, I didn’t know where to go for help.”
In 2019, when his landlord increased the rent on his apartment, Podlesney became homeless and was allocated a bed in a Dublin hostel. He started spending his days drinking with other homeless Poles and Lithuanians in Dublin’s north inner city. Despite watching some of these men become extremely ill, and sometimes die, through alcohol addiction or exposure to the elements during the winter, he did not become seriously concerned about his own health until last year.
Aneta Kubas, coordinator of Dublin’s Barka reconnection project, met Podlesney in 2019 when she started working for the charity. “I remember Jerzy from the very beginning. We used to meet him at the Capuchin centre where he went for a hot meal. And also on Wolfe Tone Square of course.
“I could see Jerzy’s health getting worse and worse over the years; he wasn’t young. Especially last year, his health was getting very bad.”
She told me about the help I could get in Poland and I realised what a new life could look like. What she told me was true, my life with Barka is only positive now
— Jerzy Podlesney
Like most of his friends who were also homeless, Podlesney brushed aside any suggestion he move back to Poland.
The explanation for people’s refusal to move back is multifaceted, says Kubas. “Usually when these people come here, they lose contact with their families and friends in Poland. Some of them have been here 15-20 years and have no idea how much Poland and Lithuania have changed – they’re different countries from the early 2000s, with lots of opportunities.”
They’re also embarrassed about returning with nothing, she says. “When they left, they imagined going back with a big car and money. They feel like losers.”
The social welfare or disability allowance they receive is the main driver keeping people here, she adds. “These small payments keep them drinking, it helps feed their addiction. It’s just enough money to stay alive but not enough to help them stand on their two feet. Many people remain stuck in Ireland due to minimal benefits that provide no real way forward, especially for those who don’t speak English. They’re also afraid if they move home, they won’t be entitled to any benefits or supports.”
Podlesney agrees sleeping in a homeless hostel with a few euro is not enough to restart life. “What truly matters is having a supportive environment and a chance for real change.”
His realisation that he needed to change his life came on a cold day last November when he ran into Kubas on Moore Street. “I was really honest with him,” recalls Kubas, who was shocked by his appearance. “I could see how bad his health was and told him I was afraid he would die. I told him he was on a journey heading straight towards death. I was direct but I felt it was the right moment.”
He heard her message clearly for the first time that day. “She told me about the help I could get in Poland and I realised what a new life could look like,” he says, becoming emotional. “What she told me was true, my life with Barka is only positive now.”
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The road to recovery has not been easy – in January, Podlesney packed his bags and announced he was returning to Ireland. He called Kubas, who urged him to stay put. “He said he’d write a list of pros and cons for returning to Ireland and I told him, ‘Jerzy, draw two columns and put life on one side and death on the other.’ He chose life.”
The 60-year-old has been sober for five months now and hopes to reconnect with his family, having spent Christmas with his adult son. He is due to be transferred to supported housing for older men in his home city of Rzeszow.
Unlike the homeless hostels where he lived in Dublin, Barka’s Poznan centre has zero tolerance for alcohol among residents. “For now, the most important thing is making it through 24 hours of a sober life each day,” says Podlesney. “I go to bed in the evening sober and pray I’ll wake up sober the next day. And in the morning, I thank God for another sober day.”
