Proposed bylaws to end the unregulated provision of food on the street to Dublin’s homeless population must not be used to push volunteer groups “out of existence”, Dublin city councillors have said.
Councillors have raised concerns about plans to draft “soup kitchen” bylaws to end the practice whereby voluntary groups set up unregulated services, mostly providing hot food, to people queuing on the city’s streets.
The council said it wants food services to be provided in safe, regulated, indoor settings.
The introduction of bylaws to regulate on-street charitable services was a recommendation of the Taoiseach Simon Harris’ Taskforce for Dublin published last October, which noted the model of on-street delivery in “high-profile locations risks the privacy, dignity and the safety of people using the service, attracts antisocial behaviour and drug dealing, and degrades the public realm”.
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However, the council has long sought to end the practice. An independent report commissioned three years ago found a need to take “immediate action to address risks of on-street services”.
The report by social policy consultant Mary Higgins found on-street services were undermining regulated services and exposing vulnerable people to “undignified” and “unsafe” conditions.
However, councillors said volunteer groups were providing vital services to people in food poverty.
“These services are absolutely essential,” People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy said. The quality of food in some emergency accommodation centres was “shocking and drives people to these volunteer services”, he said.
Fine Gael’s Colm O’Rourke said the message needed to go out that the bylaw proposal was “not about stopping a service, it is about improving it”.
Fianna Fáil’s Racheal Batten said a need for an indoor facility was identified four year ago “but has not been proactively done”.
Sinn Féin’s Daithí Doolan said it needed to be clear the council was “not attempting to shut down any services or undermine or put blockades in the way of good, decent, services ... Any bylaws that come before us will only be passed if they support those services.”
Labour’s Darragh Moriarty said it was important not to “overburden these voluntary groups with so much red tape and regulation that we push them out of existence”.
Independent councillor Cieran Perry said there was a concern among some volunteer groups “that the visibility of food poverty is an embarrassment to the Government and this may be playing some part in these proposals. I hope not.”
There were he said some groups who were seeking cash from vulnerable people in exchange for services Cllr Perry said, but “the genuine ones want a proper system”.
A licensing and permit system “would be workable” he said, but requiring them to secure charitable status would be too onerous.
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