Dressed in a suit and tie, Tom looked more like the chief executive of a company than a man relying on the Cork voluntary caring service, Penny Dinners, for his Christmas day meal.
Tom, originally from Waterford, joined one hundred other people for Christmas dinner at 9am on Christmas morning with foodstuffs donated by the nearby River Lee Hotel.
Life has been rough for Tom in recent years. He lived in New York with his wife and two children but the marriage broke up and he decided to return to Ireland. He sough employment but his arrival home was at the height of the crash and he was unable to secure a full time position.
A trained butcher, he hit “rock bottom” when he ended up stealing from a supermarket. He is currently homeless but Cork City Council put him in a bed and breakfast for Christmas.
“The bed and breakfast doesn’t have business in the winter time so he was willing to take eight people. It is back to the hostel then after. I am trying to get Cork City Council to get a flat. I never expected my life to be like this. I emigrated in 1986 and I spent twenty six years in New York city.
“I am a top, highly skilled butcher by trade. I came back at the time of the Celtic crash. I did a bit of work in construction. Homelessness is effecting a lot of people’s mental health. People are throwing themselves in the river. They see no hope. Don’t think that I wasn’t sat in that room last night with thoughts running through my head. I was thinking would I be better off gone? But then I had here to go to this morning.”
Tom, who declined to use his surname as he is attempting to get a job, said there was a stigma attached to homelessness. He nearly got a job at a butcher’s in the city centre but his hopes were dashed after the owner found out that he attended Penny Dinners for his daily meal.
Tom paid tribute to Caitriona Twomey who runs Penny Dinners saying that dozens of people are helped by her endless generosity every day. He is hopeful of a brighter future. However, he says his court appearance for stealing food was particularly devastating and has impacted on his ability to get a job.
“I have met homeless people at the side of a bench and I had no skills of how to survive on the streets. I went in to a supermarket and took food and I got caught and I went in and got a custodial sentence. And I never in my life expected something like that to happen to me. It is hard to get a job because people are narrow minded. I was getting and a job and the man said ‘I heard you go to Penny Dinners. How could I trust you with the till?’ So that is what you are up against.”
Meanwhile, David Dunne from Mayfield in Cork city is a regular at Penny Dinners. He is in poor health, having undergone a triple bypass recently aged just 47. He lives alone and was thrilled to sit down to a lavish Christmas meal.
“Caitriona who runs it is just brilliant. The food is very good. I had to get a taxi down here today but tomorrow I will be in by bus as usual. I am also in the High Hopes homeless choir. I go there every Wednesday. I go to Penny Dinners every day. She (Caitriona) is so good.”
Volunteer Sean Healy said it was the best year for donations at the facility.
“I remember when I first started out five years ago we were just lucky enough to have the food for Christmas day. But it’s great now. Big businesses have got involved as well this year. It is nice that they recognise that people need help.”
A concert was held at 11am just after dinner with all the trimmings was consumed. Local singer songwriter Jack O’Rourke provided the music so diners at the Penny Dinners building in Hanover Street listened and sang along to songs such as “Lean on Me” and the “Fairytale of New York.”
The little back area at Penny Dinners was full to the brim with dozens of bags of carrots and potatoes donated by the public. Volunteer Marek Aguscik was sorting vegetables and had an Emu, of all things, in his hands when he told me that he was glad there was such “a great atmosphere” on Christmas day. The Polish national said like all volunteers his job involved doing “a little bit of everything”.
An exhausted but content Caitriona Twomey stressed there was a lot more awareness of homelessness and poverty this Christmas.
“There is a huge amount of awareness. There is a huge amount of compassion. Nobody wants to see anyone miserable at Christmas and people are so lonesome. We have forty people in here now but we fed sixty more before that. We have also sent plates of food to people who can’t come in. There has been such an outpouring of compassion from the public and we and the people here are grateful for that.”
Penny Dinners operates a daily food service for the needy in Cork city. For information on how to donate go to www.Corkpennydinners.ie