December nights take heavy toll at bridge

Philip is a qualified chef who says that a few years ago he had a job in the Shelbourne Hotel. But last night he was begging on Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge, with a sheet of cardboard propped between his back and the railings to protect him from the ferocious wind coming down the Liffey.

A bearded 26-year-old who could have been 40, he had been on the bridge for "about five hours" when I spoke to him, but at least he didn't have far to go home. Or if not home, to the awning in front of Dublin Woollen Mills, at the Liffey Street end of the bridge, where he spends nights with his wife, Melissa (23). "She won't go into the women's hostels because they're too rough, so I can't go to the men's hostels. But they're full anyway."

The couple have two children, aged seven and three, now being looked after by his family. Philip says family problems contributed to him and Melissa being on the street: "My family didn't like her, and her family didn't like me. It was complicated." They used to have a flat in the Oliver Bond complex but got run out by "vigilantes" because of what Philip says were groundless drug allegations.

Philip "owns" the Ha'penny Bridge, or at least claims exclusive rights for soliciting money there. "That's the way it works. This is my patch - from there [Merchant's Arch] to Liffey Street. If anybody else moved in, there'd be an argument." Money drops into his cup regularly while we're talking but he says people aren't as generous in good weather: "On a day like this I might make £40." Two friends pass him with a nod - both also homeless, he says, "but they won't talk to you". They've found a squat in Camden Street, where Philip and Melissa may be able to stay. There are about four groups of homeless people in Dublin, he says: drinkers, druggies, ordinary people (like him) and "others". I ask him about Arran Quay Church, up river, where gardai say "four or five people" sleep in the porch. "They're drinkers: you won't get sense out of them," says Philip. But when I called to the church last night there was nothing under the arches but a sodden blanket.

Across the city, outside Drury Street car park, Jason Byrne (26), originally from Kilmainham, was begging. Business was not as brisk there and Jason was losing hope of getting the money for a B&B where he could have a clean bed and a shower.

A bricklayer, he used to work full time and hopes to again. But even in booming Dublin he claims he can't get a job without "an address and a social insurance number and all the rest of it". He lived in a squat in Inchicore for a while but now sleeps "anywhere - on the benches in the parks sometimes".

Homeless for seven years, he tried hostels for a while but got "lice and fleas" and doesn't go there anymore. He became homeless after his mother died and he went to England with his father but didn't like it. "I have brothers but I don't get on with them." He knows "hundreds" on the streets: "A lot of them are there because of drugs and drink but with a lot of others it's just family stuff - alcoholic fathers and that."

Earlier yesterday evening, on O'Connell Bridge, Colm (21), from Clondalkin - Melissa's brother, Philip later informs me - braved driving rain to beg for money. He wouldn't go near the hostels - "I wouldn't put a dog in some of them" - and didn't know where he would be spending the night.

He has been homeless since the age of 13 but wouldn't elaborate on why he took to the streets. He claimed to know "at least 150" other people living rough in the city. He spent his nights "at the back of shops, or up laneways" but he wouldn't bed down until about 2 a.m. The rest of the evening would mainly be spent walking the streets. Sometimes he had one or two pairs of dry jeans he could change into if he got wet, sometimes not. How long did he think he would continue like this, I asked. "As long as I live, I suppose."