Introduction
As the mercury plummeted in early January, news broke that Dublin City Council were planning to ban (or severely restrict) on-street soup kitchens through the creation of new bye-laws and regulations. The story was superbly covered by the Dublin Inquirer here, speaking with people who use the services but also covering the ensuing debate by local councillors within the Dublin City Chambers. Assertions made by the council housing manager about whether people availing of the on-street food provision were indeed homeless demonstrated that the Victorian principle of “less eligibility” is alive and well in modern, wealthy Ireland.
Capital City Report
Last year, the Taoiseach’s Dublin City Taskforce published ‘Capital City’ with the aim of establishing a “set of recommendations to rejuvenate and revitalise Dublin.” Within the ten broad recommendations, section five outlined steps to “deliver more targeted and better located services for vulnerable populations in the city centre.”
After a perfunctory hat-tip to the state’s duty towards common good and dignity in the Irish Constitution, the report’s authors promptly followed with its assessment of food provision by charities:
“The relatively recent phenomenon of charities providing food, tents and other services on the street, while well-intentioned, further adds to this rise in social issues. These groups are for the most part unregulated and do not have the skills or experience to engage with people who have complex and multiple needs. The model of on-street delivery in high profile locations risks the privacy, dignity and the safety of people using the service, attracts anti-social behaviour and drug dealing and degrades the public realm” [emphasis added]
Admirably demonstrating the adage that the paper never refuses the pen, there is much to query in this assessment which would not be out of place on a call-in radio show. While the provision of basic needs should as warm food and shelter (tents) might be a new phenomenon to the report’s authors, the Muslim Sisters Of Éire were founded in 2010 and A Lending Hand a few years later in 2013. Many other charities providing street-level care emerged during the period of Fine Gael/Labour austerity as social services were eviscerated and poverty skyrocketed.
Most clearly, there is a patronising attitude to the charities and volunteers as “well-intentioned” but lacking “skills and experience,” which is then followed up with a generous side of insincerity concerned with the risks to the “privacy, dignity, and the safety” of people receiving basic food and other provisions. The question of how people ended up with “multiple and complex needs” is avoided to focus on regulation, form- filling and box-ticking; all wrapped in the language of concern. Sensibly, the authors demonstrated restraint to not overstate their argument by alluding to GDPR concerns.
Methodologically, such a wide-ranging recommendation about the very future of charitable food provision should probably consult with the soup kitchens involved and the people receiving supports who will be most impacted. While finding time to speak with celebrity economists and every shade of industry lobbyist, no interviews or focus groups involved the soup kitchens. A small community focus group of five participants – NCYI, DFI, Kids Inc., Outhouse, Community Co-op – was conducted.
Terms used in the assessment avoid clarity and are chosen to be suggestive of worst case to the reader. What are the “social issues” that arise from people having their basic needs met? Is there a risk of harm or is it optics as hundreds of adults and children queue for food outside the General Post Office? The degradation of the public realm of O’Connell Street is subjective as others may observe that the derelict buildings covered by temporary facades; the ubiquity of casinos and fruit machines; and the absence of protected cycle lanes, public toilets, and seating denote an already degraded public realm on the main thoroughfare of a European capital city.
Food Poverty
Ultimately, the authors recommend that Dublin City Council develop and enact new bye laws to regulate on-street charitable services such as soup kitchens and other services. As reported previously, this proposed ban on soup kitchens has been in the pipeline for a number of years, following a 2021 review and council plans in 2023. The Taoiseach Taskforce report will provide new impetus and political cover to ban on-street food provision. Yet, the report makes no recommendations for how the charities and voluntary organisations can continue to provide for those individuals and families who rely on their presence. This suggests that regulation will be sufficient to achieve the City Council’s ambitions; no alternatives will be necessary.
Governments measure what they care about. There are many measures for economic growth and the labour market, yet there is no official food poverty indicator in Ireland. The Economic and Social Research Institute created a proxy measure in 2012 based on an income and living standards survey. Most recent figures, based on proxy measure, demonstrate that food poverty in 2022 was 9%, which was an increase from 7% in 2018. At the midway point of the last Fine Gael/Fianna Fáil led Government, one in ten people in Ireland experienced not having enough to eat on a daily basis. Before Christmas, we saw people so poor that they queued up at 2am for €50 vouchers at the Capuchin Day Centre. In a single evening, the Muslim Sisters of Éire provide almost 500 hot meals to all ages, abilities, and nationalities. Not a “relatively recent phenomenon” for those with eyes to see.
Finally, it is noteworthy that the ‘Capital City’ report was commissioned by the Taoiseach’s Taskforce as the shift in Irish policy-making to style over substance has been repeatedly modelled by recent taoisigh. When what tourists, international business people, and visitors may see is assigned more weight than those who are experiencing the lack of basic needs such as food and shelter; your priorities may be somewhat askew.
If Ireland has soup kitchens, I want them to be visible – however uncomfortable for policymakers – not hidden in the peripheries of the city. I don’t want it to easily slip from my mind that I live in a country that has extraordinary wealth yet has normalised street homelessness and food poverty.
