The idea of outlawing on-street soup kitchens in Dublin city sounds high-handed and distinctly uncharitable, particularly in the middle of winter.
Volunteers who give out free hot food to the homeless from makeshift stalls are decent, well-meaning people, Dublin City Council acknowledges. They are providing a service for which there is a growing, desperate need in the city, and are stepping in where official or statutory services appear to have left a gap.
This is not a new phenomenon. More than five years ago pictures posted on social media of a young child eating off a sheet of cardboard on the ground sparked outrage. Other images followed, including one of an elderly woman eating her dinner on a window ledge.
It is the growth in demand for such services, and the conditions in which people are availing of them, that is part of the problem and the reason why the council feels bylaws are necessary. The volume of people queuing at some stalls has resulted in safety risks, according to a report commissioned by the council in 2021. The report noted people queuing and eating on the street were put in a position that was “inherently undignified and is potentially unsafe”. It also said that the street services were undermining the work of mainstream and statutory providers, and possibly supporting people to remain on the streets.
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However, that all presupposes that there are adequate, regulated indoor services for the people that need them. Manifestly, given the queues at the street stalls, there are not.
The council said the bylaws will only be introduced where there is a complementary increase in the appropriate indoor services, which would offer hot food and other services such as showers and professional help.
The move to indoor provision would seem to offer a better, safer, solution for most people in need, but it would be essential the State follows through on that provision and that the bylaws are not just used as a way to “clean up” the streets. Those in need of a hot meal must be the priority