Homeless men broke windows to get bed in jail

TWO homeless brothers who felt they couldn’t survive sleeping rough broke six windows at a bank in the hope of getting beds in a jail cell, a court heard yesterday.

Anthony Donnelly, aged 41, and his brother Michael, aged 42, broke the windows at the National Irish Bank in Cork city, but weren’t arrested because the building’s faulty alarm did not go off.

They waited 20 minutes outside the building at South Mall but no gardaí arrived. Eventually, they went to Anglesea Street Garda Station and reported their crime on Sunday morning.

“They would have assisted the bank by highlighting a breach in their own security,” solicitor Joseph Cuddigan told Cork District Court yesterday.

The men, formerly of Barrack Street, Dundalk, wanted to go to prison because they did not think they would survive sleeping rough.

They had never been in trouble before they left England a year ago, but things had gone downhill for them since arriving in Ireland, the court was told.

When they were homeless in Dundalk, they broke windows at the local Urban District Council, for which they got a four-week sentence.

They got into the Simon Community for five weeks after that but then ended up homeless again. They returned to the Dundalk UDC, broke more windows and were jailed for four months.

They were released from the Midlands Prison on Saturday and given rail passes to get to Cork. By the time they got to Cork they could find no accommodation, so they once again resorted to breaking windows.

Yesterday Judge Uinsin MacGruairc said he could not use the men’s homelessness as a reason to send them to jail, but imposed three-month sentences for the offence of criminal damage. He recommended the probation and welfare service get involved in the case when the brothers were in prison.