Diners at Cork soup kitchen up by 55% per week as donations sought

A Cork soup kitchen is feeding 1,400 people a week — a 55% rise in demand in a year. Cork Penny Dinners, which was started by the Quakers during famine times, says 2013 has been its busiest ever.

This time last year it was feeding about 900 people a week, a figure it described as “staggering” in comparison with the roughly 140 people that ate from the kitchen before the economic collapse.

“Every day we’re seeing homeowners, renters, people who have lost their home, students, single people who are struggling, everything,” said charity trustee Catriona Twomey.