‘Awful indictment on our community’
Josephine O’Brien of the Homeless Education and Learning Project in Ennis has known the 58-year-old Czech Josef Pavelka and 35-year-old Polish man Peter Baram since 2008.
The two are alcoholics and Ms O’Brien said: “I fear for them. They will die if the rules aren’t changed to allow them avail of statutory services. Josef has health issues and sleeping in a toilet will only make it worse.”
At Ennis District Court on Wednesday, where Mr Pavelka was appearing on public order charges, Judge Patrick Durcan said it was a scandal that Mr Pavelka was sleeping in a toilet.
The two men cannot receive any social welfare benefits as they do not have habitual residency.
Ms O’Brien said: “I know they have addiction problems, but they don’t deserve to be sleeping in a public toilet. It is disgraceful.”
Yesterday morning, Mr Pavelka was sitting on a windowsill on Ennis’s O’Connell St with 15c to his name.
He had endured another night sleeping in a public toilet in Ennis town centre along with Mr Baram.
Sitting beside Mr Pavelka, Mr Baram said: “It is better to live in the toilet than go back to Poland. I cannot go back there because of conflict in my family. I have €1.30 in my pocket and I can’t go back to my country.”
He said: “When I lock the door of the toilet, I have peace and quiet. Nobody comes into the toilet and I have two blankets to keep me warm, but the floor is very cold.”
Mr Pavelka said he does not wish to return to his home country. “Absolutely not,” he said.
Sally Mulready is a member of the Irish Council of State and director of the Irish Elderly Advice Network in London, which was established after the deaths of three Irish men in their homes in Camden in 1993
She said yesterday: “Irish men who came to England in the 1940s and 1950s never experienced destitution to the level of living in a public toilet. The circumstances of this case are horrendous and desperately sad.”
However, she added: “Things are never that simple and Ireland is not a callous country and the Irish people’s instinct is to help and not look the other way.
“I am very sorry about their situation — they clearly need specialist help.”
Local priest Fr Tom Hogan and a homeless hostel operated by St Vincent de Paul in Ennis provide meals to the pair each day, while Fr Hogan also provides facilities for a wash and a shave.
“It is an awful indictment on our community that these two men are living in a public toilet,” he said. “The biggest issue for them is alcohol. That is the real problem.”
Fr Hogan said that to attend any alcohol treatment courses, participants would have to be on social welfare, at least, or working. “The two are in limboland.”
He said the St Vincent de Paul homeless shelter “has been very good to them. It is set up to provide temporary accommodation, but allowed them to stay there for two years. They can’t indefinitely accommodate people. They have 13 places and there is a constant demand on their service.”
Fr Hogan described the pair as “two very pleasant fellas. There is no malice there.”
Fr Hogan said that in the past, the two have done voluntary work on behalf of the local church.
The homeless men are well-known in the community, walking the streets of Ennis every day. Peter said: “We walk and we walk. The days are very long.”
The two sleep in separate Superloos and leave them at 7am each day when the toilets are cleaned.
“The local people are very good to us,” said Peter, adding that they are hopeful the Probation Service would be able to organise a placement for them at accommodation owned by a religious order in Blarney, Co Cork.
“We will go on Monday and find out if there is a place. If there is, we will go,” he said.
