Gareth O'Callaghan: I knelt beside a sleeping bag and wondered whose son lay inside

Extreme cold exposes not just physical vulnerability, but society’s enduring failure to care for those who disappear onto our streets

The spectre of homelessness haunts far more people than the figures indicate. Many are just a week’s pay away from it. Almost 270,000 Irish people live in a state of consistent poverty, while a further 630,000 are at real risk of poverty. File Picture: Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

“Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while,” wrote George RR Martin in A Game of Thrones.

“Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up and, after a while, you don’t have the strength to fight it.”