‘Mammy, why are we in the Garda station?’
A DUBLIN mother who says she had to sleep at a Garda station with six of her seven children has hit out at the lack of support for homeless families.
Margaret Cash, 28, and six of her children – aged between one and 11 – stayed at Tallaght station after emergency homelessness services were unable to find beds for them in the area on Wednesday night.
Ms Cash circulated pictures of her children sleeping on seats at the Garda station on social media, sparking strong criticism of the Government from leading homelessness charities.
The head of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, Eileen Gleeson, said there is no need for a family requiring emergency accommodation to sleep in a Garda station. On RTÉ’s News At One, Ms Gleeson said the DRHE has contingency beds that meet standards for families or individuals in crisis.
Ms Cash has now secured temporary accommodation until Monday. She sought refuge yesterday at the offices of Inner City Helping Homeless – and chips and burgers from a takeaway were delivered for her and her family.
She told the Irish Daily Mail about the ‘worst night of her life’ when she and six of her children – Johnny, 11, Tommy, ten, Miley, seven, Jim, four, Rocky, two, and Andy, one – ended up sleeping in Tallaght Garda Station. Ms Cash’s eldest daughter was in hospital earlier this week with an infection, and has since been staying with a family friend.
The mother of seven told the Mail yesterday that one of her younger children had asked her, ‘Mammy, why are we in the police station?’ She continued: ‘The older kids understood what was happening, but the younger ones were scared. It broke my heart and I felt like a failure as a mother because I had nowhere else to take my children.’
Gardaí contacted various emergency shelter phone lines, as well as a number of local hotels, but no local accommodation could be found after the family presented after hours.
Ms Cash said: ‘I have been homeless for a year now. I had been renting a property but the landlord went bankrupt and the house ended up being sold. We have been homeless ever since.
‘We go night by night; we are given a list of hotels to ring around. With a family of eight, no hotel really can accommodate us without splitting us up.’
She said the gardaí ‘tried everything they could to help us’, adding: ‘The little ones were scared and we had no blankets at midnight. The kids slept for a few hours but I stayed awake. It was a night from hell and I hope we never have to go through this again. I felt the need to take to social media as I sat there at 3am crying, looking at my babies asleep on plastic cold chairs. I was heartbroken and ashamed that I couldn’t do more for them as a mother.’
Ms Cash was offered accommodation in Co. Meath, but said it would have been impossible to get to it so late at night.
She is currently on South Dublin County Council’s housing waiting list, but is frustrated at how long the process is taking.
She said: ‘The council has an obligation to house you, but they’re just not doing it. I have done everything I can to get my
‘I felt like a failure as a mum’
kids somewhere to live. It’s not my fault the Government is letting me and my kids down.
‘My message to the Government, and in particular Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, is that none of his family ever have to go through the ordeal that my children went through last night. We have no contact from any minister or any representative from the Government. Why would they care?
‘They and their families are looked after. To them we are nobody, just a problem when pictures like my family emerge on the news.’ Ms Cash also appealed to Minister Murphy to meet her family.
She said: ‘He should come meet us and see this is what we have to eat tonight, burgers and chips from a takeaway. We have no bed, no kitchen, no place to call home... We need help and we need it now.’
The mother of seven said she has ‘no idea’ where her older children will go to school next month. She also said that before she went public, she ‘felt that nobody cared’. She added: ‘It’s horrible to think that I had to resort to putting their image on social media to draw attention to this issue.’
Ms Cash also said she is ‘scared that they are going to try and force us out of Dublin for the Papal visit so they can put on a good show’.
In a statement, the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive said it is aware of the ‘difficult circumstances that families experiencing homelessness have to face’. It said an ‘unprecedented’ number of families presented out of hours seeking emergency accom- modation on Wednesday night, and that the Family Homeless Action Team engaged with ten families who could not find accommodation themselves.
Focus Ireland said it was ‘totally wrong’ that the family had to sleep in a Garda station. The charity said services are ‘stretched to breaking point as there is a constant rise in the numbers becoming homeless every month’.
For anyone experiencing homelessness, Focus Ireland can be contacted on 01 881 5900 or help@focusireland.ie.