IT'S LUNCHTIME at "St Joseph's Penny Dinners" in Dublin's north inner city. The smell of boiled bacon fills the turquoise room while diners of all ages seated in rows tuck into plates of meat, mushy peas and potatoes.
Some are drug addicts, some alcoholics. All are hard up, or else they wouldn't be there. St Joseph's, which was set up more than 100 years ago to serve the needy, is now in need itself.
While the centre is kept spotlessly clean, facilities are basic. There are no toilets for the diners and only a small one for the staff of eight. The walk in larder, shelves lined with packet soups, jam, peas and beans, is also used as the office and staff cloakroom. Heaters were installed in February for the first time.
Based on the ground floor of the graffiti covered Avondale House flats complex on Cumberland Street North, off Parnell Street, St Joseph's relies exclusively on public donations to meet its annual running cost of around £30,000, according to its administrator, Ms Margaret Walsh.
The centre is leased from Dublin Corporation by the St Francis Xavier Church on Gardiner Street, which collects donations for it.
It recently applied to the National Lottery for funding for refurbishment. Ms Walsh says the money would be used for new flooring, toilets, renovations for an office and staff cloak room and new kitchen equipment. Ms Walsh bought a new fridge freezer last week out of the centre's financial reserves.
"We just can't keep going into our reserves all the time because there has to be money there for food all the time," she says. "We've got to guarantee that we will stay open for another 50 years or more because there will always be people who need food."
The price list for dinners hangs on a notice board on the wall. A dinner costs 10p, soup 5p, dry bread 2p, rice pudding and tea are 5p each.
The customers don't have to pay for the meals if they can't afford to. "Drug addicts seldom pay for anything. That's fine by us. We're not here for the money end of it. The price is just to give people dignity. Most people want to pay. They don't want to come up and get hand outs."
Between 100 and 160 people visit St Joseph's every day between noon and 1.30 pm., she says. It opens five days a week and on Fridays visitors receive 1lb of EU butter and tins of beef to see them through the weekend.
The Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, replied to a written question from local Independent TD, Mr Tony Gregory, last week confirming that a funding application from St Joseph's is being considered.
"We hear so much about the booming economy yet here in the heart of Dublin is one of the last surviving penny dinner centres catering for people who have been passed over by the economic up surge and it is experiencing severe funding difficulties. A great deal of very needy people would suffer if this service does not get the Government support that it so badly needs."
Ms Walsh says she would like eventually to open the hall in the afternoon as a drop in centre for counselling or even afternoon tea. Already, she regularly makes phone calls for the diners for social welfare or medical inquiries.
"We're not just dinner ladies," she says. "We're just here to help these people."