Food parcels for families on breadline

IN refugee situations around the world, people driven from their homes by war and famine queue for food - mostly donated by affluent Western countries. In big cities around the world, including the affluent West, food is provided in hostels and day centres for people whose homelessness stems from other, more subtle, causes. In Dublin, representatives of at least 650 families - usually mothers - now attend St Vincent de Paul food banks once a fortnight to collect food for themselves and their children.

Bringing people in to collect food from centres is unusual for the Vincent de Paul, points out administrator Liam O'Dwyer. Normally the society works with families in their own homes: "Our aim is two fold: firstly to help families over an immediate difficulty, and secondly to enable them to get themselves out of the situation longer in."

The pilot use of the food bank system in areas of very serious poverty is at present under revision by the society, but Mr Dwyer is reluctant to discuss this in detail because of the Vincent de Paul's concern for the confidentiality of the people who come for help. About four of the society's conferences operate food banks on the west and north sides of the city.

A Vincent de Paul source in one area was forthright about why they had decided to opt for this system: "With the food bank system we are able to stretch our money further and give more help to more people. We use rooms at the back of the church; the food is bagged before anybody comes and people are given different time slots so that there's never a queue. If they don't want to partake in this we will try to help them in other ways but these people are living so close to the breadline that they can see they are getting more from us than they would on a voucher scheme."

Crucial to that ability to provide more food to more people is the Dublin Central Food Bank which was set up in 1989 by the Catholic. Social Services (now Crosscare) to try to channel the vast amounts of food wasted every day to people who desperately need it. By collecting food in damaged packaging or close to its sell by date from manufacturers and distributors around the city, and with some help from the EU, this food bank handles about 450 tons of food a year, according to project manager Dennis O'Callaghan.

"We are talking about just under a million meals," he says. The food is distributed through up to 60 agencies, mostly hostels for the homeless and refugees, but they also include Irish Wheelchair and Alzheimer day centres, for instance - and, for the past three or four years, some St Vincent de Paul conferences.

"We buy by weight and pay very, very little for it - 15p a kilo," says the same Vincent de Paul source. "We are given a time slot and we go in and buy beans, peas, sugar, soup, tea bags - it depends on what they have in. Sometimes you could be likely and get Donegal Catch, say, or meat."

This food is augmented in most of the conferences by purchasing fresh vegetables from the markets at nominal prices.

Three women told The Irish Times they could not have survived without the help of the food they get through this channel. Ann, married with seven children, aged seven to 15, whose husband has been unemployed for the past 10 years, runs the home on £187 unemployment benefit, including £8 for fuel. Most of the child benefit she gets goes on bills.

Bernie has five children, aged 16 to nine. Her husband left when she was five months pregnant. She gets £160 a week, including £8 for fuel, and £160 a month children's allowance.

Mary has five children. Her husband, who has rheumatoid arthritis and had a triple bypass three months ago, has been unemployed since he was 29. She is hugely proud that her eldest son got a BSc from UCD. Her daughter only missed getting the same thing by one point, and her next son got five honours in his Leaving. Both are now working. With the family living on an invalid pension of £140, Mary says: "I put the other children into the Lord's hands. I am older now and I'm tired".

All three women, when asked how they felt about going to a food centre, said they minded at first: "When it started first, a few kids suffered with other kids saying: `You can't afford food. You have to get it from the Vincent de Paul'," explained Bernie. "But there's so many going now."