The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, warned yesterday that the effect of increased fuel prices this winter could be "dramatic" where the old and poor were concerned.
"It would be a tragedy if our elderly who gave so much to bringing our country to its current stage of prosperity and high quality of life were to be the ones to suffer disproportionately at the first signs of economic challenge," he said.
He was speaking at the launch of the annual appeal for Crosscare, the social care agency of the archdiocese, for which collections will be held at Masses in Dublin next Sunday.
Crosscare's director, Fr Mick Cullen, said it was "astonishing that we are still dealing with people finding it hard to feed their families and heat their homes," 64 years after the agency was founded - in 1941 by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid.
"It's not acceptable that in the wealthy Ireland of 2005 we are still dealing with people who are cold and hungry," he said.
Fr Cullen revealed that Crosscare served 250 meals a day to Dublin's poor and elderly. Currently it also provided 370,000 meals-on-wheels annually to people who are housebound, distributed over 600 tonnes of food to 70 charities that feed the city's hungry, and provided 13,000 bed nights for its homeless.
"Here we are in 2005, Ireland is among the richest nations in the world and more than ever Crosscare is needed on the streets of the diocese," Fr Cullen said.
"Hunger and cold are two basic problems which hundreds of people in the Dublin diocese face every day," he said.
Archbishop Martin appealed for "a new range of community service" to ensure elderly people could, if they wished, remain in their own homes or in sheltered accommodation with their own autonomy and freedom.
"The situation in our hospitals, for example, shows us that very often there is no place for the elderly to go when they could easily be released from hospital," he said.
He also appealed for more voluntary workers to assist Crosscare, particularly young people.
He was convinced a huge number of young people would willingly do so, if they could take part together and there was no perception of do-goodism about it.
He also noted the tremendous amount of voluntary work still being undertaken by older people and remarked on the phenomenon of the Dublin granny, for whom the hardest Dub still retained a certain fear and respect as well as affection.
Commenting generally on voluntarism and social capital, he felt that a society which could provide creches so people could work, should be able to provide the means to build community.
He expressed his gratitude to "all the Crosscare family and to all who over the years have contributed to making the social care agency of the Dublin diocese one which we can be so proud."