The place where a homeless man died in Dublin city centre is just metres away from one of its main tourist attractions.
On Wednesday evening, a steady procession of people and tourist groups queued up to get their photographs taken with the statue of Molly Malone beside St Andrew’s Church in St Andrew’s Street.
A tour guide played the song Molly Malone to a group of Spanish tourists who had come to visit the statue. There is nothing to mark the spot where a man’s body was found in the early hours of Tuesday morning at the porch of the former church.
The church was converted into the headquarters for Fáilte Ireland in 2014 and was used as the main tourist information centre in the city. It is now, like so many other buildings post-Covid, vacant, and is awaiting conversion into a food and banqueting hall.
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The homeless man was found dead in what was the church porch, which is usually locked behind steel barriers, one of which was opened on the night.
According to a local woman who asked not to be named, the church is a magnet for homeless people as it provides some shelter at the side.
They also scale the locked-up gate and sleep in what used to be the church courtyard.
The scene of the death is across the road from O’Neill’s of Suffolk Street, one of Dublin’s most popular pubs.
Its manager, Enes Mantes, said he he noted a lot more homeless people sleeping rough recently. “It has got worse since I first became manager a year ago. They are always around here,” he said.
During the cold weather alert, Streetlink Homeless Support and the charity Help Our Homeless have been driving around Dublin city centre between midnight and 7am tending to those who remain on the street.
Streetlink Homeless Support chief executive Padraig Drummond explained that the cold weather is especially dangerous for alcohol or drug addicts. “Our fear is that the majority of homeless who remain on the streets in weather like this are substance users,” he said.
“They would rather remain on the streets than stay in a facility where they can’t use. If they are caught using on a premises, there is going to be conflict with staff and residents, so they would rather just stay on the streets.
“They are desensitised to the cold by alcohol or drugs, and when they nod off on a concrete floor they can easily suffer from hypothermia.”
As of Wednesday evening, gardaí had yet to identify the man.
An additional 330 permanent beds have been added to homeless services by Dublin City Council. The single-adult beds were introduced into the system last October by the council in a bid to get rough sleepers off the streets. In addition to these, there are 40 extreme-weather beds in non-governmental organisation services that are made available as needed.
A Department of Housing spokesperson said the discovery of the man’s body was a “tragedy” and extended sympathies to the man’s family.
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