Officials concerned about beggar children

GOVERNMENT officials were concerned about children sleeping rough in Dublin city centre — primarily because of the negative publicity it might generate in the year of Pope John Paul II’s visit.

Files show members of the public had been contacting the office of then taoiseach Jack Lynch from early 1978, raising the issue of children begging and apparently homeless in and around the O’Connell Street area.

Replies state that the matter was being investigated and internal notes show it was referred to the ministers for health and justice, but it was a full year later before any official returns to the subject.