Ms Karin Jonsson:

Yes, we see a wider variety of people accessing the food bank now, compared to the situation at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. We have only been involved in food bank provision since the end of March 2020. It is not that families working or with a mortgage were not availing of the food bank before, but a larger proportion of them are now. When they come to us, they tell us they have paid their bills. A young couple who came to us recently told us the husband’s money goes to pay the rent and the wife’s money goes to pay the bills, and there is nothing left for food. The couple do not have children, but that is their situation. If they had children, their situation might be even worse. Families also come to us who have paid their mortgages and then have nothing left.

Some of the people we are seeing now have never had to look for help before, so they find it very difficult to ask for help in the first place and then to find it. They have never looked for help with food before, but, equally, they may not have had to seek help with mental health or parenting issues either. The closure of the schools made things very difficult for some parents when children were taught at home through Zoom. Some of them came to us and said they had never had to look for help before. Now they do, and they said they were finding it hard to get the help they needed because the process was labyrinthine and difficult. That is certainly true.

Another thing that has affected people who come to the food bank because of the impact of Covid-19 is the delay in social welfare payments. I refer to the delay in the registration of children, which in turn leads to delayed payments of children’s allowance and the provision of medical cards. We have seen some families who have just received a bill from the hospital for their baby. They have paid the bill, because they always pay all their bills, and have no money left. They did not have to pay the bill, but they did not know that because they have never had to worry about such a situation that much before.

Equally, young adults who have not reached the age of 24 cannot automatically receive the full rate of social welfare payments. There are ways around that situation, but it takes a long time, and much longer now. One young adult accessing our services has €112 a week. His parents died during the last two years and he is still living in the family home. He is being supported and helped to try to resolve these issues, but it is taking time. It is time that people do not necessarily have when they need food to eat or to have to pay their heating bills. We are seeing more of those types of situations now.