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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Ciaran Bradley & Mostafa Darwish

'20 of us sleep together for warmth': The homeless people freezing on Ireland's streets during cold snap

People living on Ireland's streets have told us about the drastic measures they have to take to avoid death and injury as the so-called 'Troll of Trondheim' cold weather system grips the nation.

With temperatures due to fall well below zero in the coming days, the Irish Mirror spoke to those who are worst-affected by the weather conditions.

Dominic spoke to us from the Ha'penny Bridge in central Dublin.

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"At the moment, I sleep down at Connolly Station. There are maybe 20 of us who sleep down there every night.

"We sleep close together for body warmth. We usually have cardboard underneath us and a sleeping bag over us. We sleep tightly together for body warmth.

"During the day, we might go to Brother Luke's for breakfast or dinner, other than that we walk the streets all day. We have got nowhere to go. We are sleeping at Connolly Station.

"We were in a hostel for six months and we were given two days to leave our hostel so they can make room for Ukrainians because they had 7,600 coming over and needed to house them."

"The Government should have done it a different way to the way they did. I worked until Covid, who would have thought I would have ended up on the streets begging? Not me."

He continues on the politics of the situation as he sees it.

"The Government is doing nothing. I'm not a political person - and I never thought I'd say this - but if Sinn Fein got in then they would do something for the homeless. Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are doing nothing, they are all landlords and they're all making serious money.

"The homeless are forgotten, totally and utterly forgotten. There are lots and lots of people dying on the streets from the cold and it is never mentioned."

Dominic says that the scale of the homelessness problem in Dublin is underappreciated by those in power.

"Half of the city centre is homeless. You go into any of the laneways or back alleys, they are all sleeping [rough].

"What you see in daily life [in Dublin], this is the reality. All the laneways are full of homeless, there are homeless sleeping out in the cold every night. There are, easily, 1,000 people sleeping out in the city centre. Easily."

A second man, David, is 69 years old. We spoke to him outside the GPO on O'Connell Street.

He explained the lengths that he will go to to escape the cold.

"I will do something small to get into prison," he says.

"I have just come from prison - I was in there over nine months on a trespass charge. I refused to leave a hostel when I was given two hours' notice.

"I refused to sign the bail because I had nowhere to go. I can't really go to just any hostel because of my age and health issues. I don't want to be in a room with a lot of other people. So I just thought I will go to prison."

David believes the medical treatment available in prison is problematic.

"The medical treatment there is a joke, they are hopeless there. I'm not interested in bringing a case for my own sake because I'm out now but for the sake of other prisoners, someone needs to tell the story of what's going on in there."

David struggles to believe a political solution is imminent.

"I think the Government have got themselves into a right mess over the years by not doing what they should be doing and it is getting late now. It is too late for a lot of [homeless] people.

"Sinn Fein are making a lot of good points but I don't think they would do much better because you can't just build a load of houses and make it all better.

"Then you have the refugees and so on, there is so much accommodation needed that I just don't see how they are going to get out of this mess."

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