Woman begs for train fare to get family to Donegal

Sarah Kelly (29) was trying to put together the train fare to Donegal for herself and her two children yesterday.

Dressed in jeans and a silver-grey anorak, the brown-haired young woman was begging to raise £40 beneath the archway at the Central Bank on Dame Street, just before the steps down to Crown Alley. "Please miss," she said, "can I talk to you?" she asked.

"I have to get myself and my two kids off the streets. All we have is a sleeping bag and I have to get them out of the city."

She said she had come to Dublin two weeks ago, looking for work after her husband left her. Her son, Martin, was three and her daughter, Sarah, was one-and-a-half, she said, adding that "someone" was babysitting them in "the park".

This she later identified as St Stephen's Green. "We've been sleeping in there," she said.

Asked if she had tried to get into a hostel, she said she had been to "a load of places but they were all taken over, all full up, like, full of refugees".

She said she couldn't get social welfare because she hadn't brought any identification with her from Donegal.

Her husband, to whom she had been married for four years, left her two months ago - "went to England" - she said. Since arriving in Dublin she had been begging to get some hot food for the children.

"But they are freezing now. It's very cold, very cold. I have to get them back to my mother and she will be able to look after us. She didn't want me to go."

Pulling her sleeves up to reveal cuts about her arms and hands, she said she had been attacked several times at night.

"I've been beaten and cut, by drunks and young ones. It's not safe."

Although there are more homeless women than men - an estimated 1,550 mostly young women compared with 1,350 men in counties Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare - fewer women sleep rough. As Simon outreach worker Derval Howley explains, it's a lot harder for women to survive on the streets. Most homeless women are regarded as the "hidden homeless", usually staying in B&Bs or with friends.

"They are a lot more vulnerable to attack or to being robbed on the streets," says Ms Howley. If they have children they should find it easier to get local authority accommodation, she adds. This is reflected in the amount of hostel accommodation available. Five hostels or refuges in Dublin provide emergency accommodation for women with children - 244 beds in total, compared with seven for men only providing 454 beds.

One of the emergency hostels for women with families is free - the Missions of Charity hostel on the South Circular Road which has 14 beds. The others cost about £10 a week per family. The biggest, the Regina Coeli hostel on Morningstar Avenue, has 120 beds and costs £13 a week for single women or £10 a week for families.

Sarah said that if she failed to raise the £40 she needed yesterday she would have to wait until tomorrow for the next train.

"I don't think the kids could take another two nights. I don't think so. Really don't," she said.