SLEEPING ON THE STREET:THERE WERE few people begging on the streets of Dublin city centre yesterday as heavy snow soaked through the clothes and footwear of anyone out in it for more than a few minutes.
Christian Molnar (38) from Budapest was kneeling on a piece of white cardboard at the top of Grafton Street. He was holding a flimsy piece of card, with the words: “I am hungry. Please Help. Thank you” written on it.
Two €1 coins sat in a woollen hat on the ground by his knees.
“I don’t have any money, absolute.”
He has been in Dublin a few days, he says, and is staying at a hostel for €10 a night.
“I am always travelling. I go to Finland, to Italy and I live four years in Paris. I very like Ireland. The people is totally the best and I like the streets. Yes, it is very cold, but I am happy. The people are so nice. They buy me tea, all these things.”
With snow falling relentlessly, he tells how he was in Dublin in the summer and “almost worked. I was at this place, Bewleys, and a man say I could work there, but I had to go back to Hungary.”
He has a sister in Budapest. “My parents separate when I was two. My mother is in Belgium.” They don’t worry about him? “No, no. I have good life,” he smiles.
Mary (38) and Mark (36), from Rialto, Dublin, are walking quickly down Grafton Street when they agree to talk about sleeping out the previous night.
“We sleep in a lane behind there,” said Mark. “We have a good doorway and I build up [sleeping] bags and cardboard, and the two of us are okay. It is cold though, yeah.”
They won’t go into a hostel as they would have to be separated. They had a flat in Fatima Mansions but after a fire three years ago they had to leave.
“When we wake up we go to the Merchants Quay for a cup of tea and you can get a sandwich there,” Mary says.
Her brown wavy hair is wet and she has a number of teeth missing. She is drinking tea from a paper cup. Mark is carrying a pink sleeping bag and she a fabric bag full of what looks like clothes.
“We get about €40 begging, on a good day. People are kind of rushing past in this weather but they are stopping too,” he says. “I think people are kind of a bit kinder in this weather. I used to drink, but I’m off it now.”
Mark says he gets “very depressed sometimes, but I’m off the drink and that makes me hopeful.
“We’d like to get a bit of a structure, a place, like.” He’s not sure if they are on the housing list.
“She takes care of all that kind of stuff,” he says, gesturing after Mary, who has gone on ahead.
Earlier, volunteers with the Dublin Diocesan Crosscare charity, who normally provide more than 200 meals at its three food centres, delivered over 220 meals to people in their homes.
Noel Clarke, manager of the Holles Row centre, said yesterday his staff were out on foot delivering meals for yesterday and today “in case we can’t get to them tomorrow”.
