‘No job, no money, no social welfare, no food’

The queue at the Capuchin centre is growing weekly. Noel Baker talks to those desperate for food

THE first man in the queue outside the Capuchin Day Centre was standing in his spot from 7am, and his mood, perhaps understandably, was not the better for it.

“You look along the queue and see how many Irish nationals are in it?” he said. Referring to the presence of foreigners, he said: “They should not be here in the first place. When we had hard times in the past there this [place] was always open, seven days a week. The bags are a quarter the size they used to be — you could live on one bag a week four or five years ago. The publicity has not helped, it has attracted more people.”