A charity worker who has operated the Penny Dinners soup kitchen in Cork city for the past 20 years has said the service is now feeding about 500 people every day.
Caitriona Twomey told 96FM Opinion Line Producer Paul Byrne that demand continues to rise as the cost of living has “gone out of control for an awful lot of people”, reports Breaking News.
“They can’t manage, they can’t pay their bills and buy food at the same time. The numbers will grow until the cost of living comes down to an affordable living for everybody,” she said, reports Breaking News.
Ms Twomey said she is constantly seeing new faces, with people accessing the service coming from “all walks of life.”
“We have a lot of new faces. New people that are facing difficulties and heading into a difficult 2026. They come from all walks of life.
“Years ago, it was just men who were fond of the drink, or might have spent their money gambling. They knew they wouldn’t get a meal at home, or they might have been thrown out of home for a couple of days.
“They would come to Penny Dinners, and that was traditionally what it was all about. Then the women started to come, then children started to come, and now it is everybody,” reports Breaking News.
Ms Twomey said it is the “reality of 2025 and it will be the reality of 2026” that people in Ireland are going hungry.
“There will be a lot more people homeless. There will be a lot more people hungry. And that’s something that we have to be geared up for, and to always be there. Just to give a person a meal every day is a fundamental and basic way to help them,” she said, reports Breaking News.
“We sign up to be of service to people. It’s a tough world out there for a lot of people, and we don’t want anybody suffering. And no matter what issue, no matter what problem you have in your life, if you have hunger in your belly, it’s very difficult to solve any problem then.
“So taking the hunger away may put them into a better position whereby they can either seek help for whatever issue they have, whether it’s addiction,mental health, etc.
“Or whether it’s just a person that’s after losing a job, or a person that’s been made homeless, or a person that’s at risk,” reports Breaking News.
She warned that people who were once financially comfortable are now facing housing insecurity.
“Only this week we heard of people that we know quite well that are at risk of being made homeless. They are destroyed about Christmas and not being able to have a home after Christmas and not knowing what to do. People that are in their 50s, getting this news, you can imagine how difficult it is for them.
“You can imagine how difficult it is for families if they’re at risk of losing the home. Imagine having to tell their children that they’re going to lose the home that they lived in, and imagine the feelings those children will have. So everything has a ripple effect to it. We need to find solutions. The Government needs to put the solutions in place,” reports Breaking News.
Meanwhile, the service expects to provide meals for several hundred people on Christmas Day, with a special dinner being prepared by the River Lee Hotel in Cork city.
Ms Twomey said she is especially troubled by the “phenomenal” and “heartbreaking” increase in deaths among younger service users, reports Breaking News.
She predicted a “cold, hungry and hurt” beginning to 2026, adding that when she looks into the eyes of some service users now, she instinctively feels she “won’t be looking in their eyes next year.”
The official role of Penny Dinners is to provide a daily food service to those in need in Cork, reports Breaking News.
However, Ms Twomey works seven days a week arranging accommodation for individuals, delivering food to housebound clients unable to attend in person, and overseeing night classes at the premises.
Last year, the charity relocated to new premises on James Street in Cork city after previously operating from Little Hanover Street, reports Breaking News.
Cork Penny Dinners was first registered as a charitable soup kitchen in 1888 and traces its origins back to the famine era. The organisation is largely volunteer-run and provides hot meals from 9am daily, seven days a week, reports Breaking News.
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