Dublin City Council have sought to end the practice for years.

Bylaws aimed at banning “well-meaning” volunteer groups providing on-street hot meals to Dublin’s homeless population are set to be drafted by Dublin City Council this year. This is something the council has been attempting to outlaw for a while, after an independent report  commissioned three years ago found a need to take “immediate action to address the risks associated with on-street services,” as they subject vulnerable people to “undignified” and “unsafe” conditions. The report also linked the on-street soup kitchens to drug-dealing and recommended that the operations should be moved indoors and to alternative locations. 

The Taoiseach’s Taskforce for Dublin recommended the ban last October, stating that the model of delivery in “high-profile locations risks the privacy, dignity and the safety of people using the service, attracts anti-social behaviour and drug dealing, and degrades the public realm.”

However, the report has been criticised – particularly by those involved in the on-street kitchens. In a statement to The Journal, Chris O’Reilly, of the Liberty Soup Run in the city centre, explicitly stated that he believed the recommendation to be wrong. Liberty Soup Run, a non-profit mobile service delivering food and sleeping bags to Dublin’s homeless population, initially planned to close over the Christmas period. However, they decided to keep the service operating after witnessing the sheer number of people in need over the festive period, “I’m not going to stop for nobody, because these people depend on us,” he said.

Ireland’s homelessness levels are at a crisis point. According to Focus Ireland, there are currently 15,199 people who are homeless in Ireland – the highest number on record.

While Karl Mitchell, who represented the council on the Dublin Taskforce, has said any new laws would be complemented by an increase in indoor services, there has been no specific details on how this would look once the ban comes into effect. More widely, the ban has been criticised as an attempt to superficially clean up the city’s image and further gentrify the city centre, while failing to tackle root causes of homelessness.

This evening, Dublin Food Not Bombs have organised a protest outside City Hall at 6.10pm to oppose the bylaws. In an Instagram post announcing the protest, they called on people to “Come share a meal with us to show solidarity with groups under attack by DCC’s shameful attempt to ban soup runs from Dublin. We can’t let them ban us from helping our neighbours!”

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