The Capuchin Day Centre in Dublin, which will distribute Christmas hampers to those in need next week, had to stop handing out tickets for the hampers amid “absolutely chaotic scenes” on Wednesday on the advice of gardaí, its co-ordinator said.
Alan Bailey, who has volunteered at the centre since 1972, said people started queuing for the tickets at Bow Street at 4am on Wednesday, and doors opened at 7am.
“At 11am the guards called a halt to it. They said, ‘Look for everybody’s safety it has to stop’. We’d given out about 2,800 tickets by then. It was chaos. You can imagine what next week will be like,” he said. “It shows the level of need. In all my years here, it is the worst I have ever seen it, absolutely. I am shocked.”
He said all available tickets were distributed by lunchtime, and hampers or supermarket vouchers would be distributed from 8am next Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the gardaí said officers were there “in a crowd management capacity” and a policing plan was in place for the annual Christmas hamper/voucher dispersal on December 20th.
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Amanda Murphy (47) was among those in the queue. “I arrived at about 11 and there was just was so many people there it was shocking. The street was full of people and [the queue] wasn’t moving. The chaps here were trying their best to sort it out with the guards.
“In the end the guards just asked people to move away because you know, it was scary. When you have a crowd suddenly moving towards you and you don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s scary. The guards were saying, ‘Keep the peace, keep the peace’.”
Speaking as she finishes lunch in the centre’s dining hall, she says she is relieved she got a ticket, as “the price of things has just skyrocketed”. She lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment in nearby Smithfield, and cannot work as she has a disability. “I come here about three times a week for lunch. It saves me about €20 a week which is a good bit of money really.”
Asked whether she has cut back on anything, she nods. “My energy. I don’t put the heating on as much as possible. I’ll have to cut back on presents. I think it will be scarves and gloves for everyone. I’ll go to my mother’s for Christmas.”
On Wednesday, 644 lunches were served at the centre. The hall was packed for lunch at 12.30pm, with at least four people seated at each of the 20 tables, and a queue of about 20 waiting to come in. A new family area, built on during the pandemic to extend capacity for groups with children, is also busy.
One of the volunteers clearing tables comments on the increasing number of South American students using the service in the past year. Their visas allow them work 20 hours a week, leaving budgets “very tight”, he says.
Celina Smyth (44), has been homeless for 18 months following the deaths of her parents, she says. Now in the Legion of Mary-run Regina Ceoli hostel, she says: “It quite nice. You have your own room but there are rules, like you have to be in at 9.30pm every night and you have to leave from 12.30pm to 5pm every day, so they can clean the corridors.” She pays €70 a week rent and €10 to use laundry facilities.
“I come down here for lunch pretty regularly, a few times a week.” She would like more support trying to exit homelessness. “I just feel they’re not doing enough for people in my situation. And I do feel very strongly about how the Government is all of a sudden able to house Ukrainians and yet our people are on the streets.”
Asked if she would “feel very strongly” if there was no housing crisis, and she had her own home, she says she would “definitely feel better about people coming here from Ukraine”.
The Capuchin centre will make its last distribution of infants’ and children’s hampers before Christmas next Monday, with nappies, formula and other essentials, with Christmas hampers/vouchers given to ticket holders on Tuesday.
