'Cost of living is out of control': Cork soup kitchen feeding 500 people a day

Olivia Kelleher

A charity worker who has run the Penny Dinners soup kitchen in Cork city for two decades says that they are feeding around 500 people every day.

Caitriona Twomey told 96FM Opinion Line Producer Paul Byrne that their numbers are continuously increasing because the cost of living has “gone out of control for an awful lot of people".

“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.

Ms Twomey said that she is seeing new faces all of the time with service users hailing 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.”

Ms Twomey indicates that it is the “reality of 2025 and it will be the reality of 2026” that people are going hungry in Ireland.

“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.

"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.”

She warns that members of the public who were once comfortable in life 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.”

Meanwhile, the service expects to feed several hundred people on Christmas Day when a special meal will be provided by the River Lee Hotel in Cork city.

Ms Twomey is particularly concerned about the “phenomenal” and “heartbreaking” rise in deaths among young service users.

She predicts a “cold, hungry and hurt” start to 2026. She adds that she looks in to the eyes of some of her service users now and instinctively knows that she “won’t be looking in their eyes next year.”

The official remit of Penny Dinners is to provide a daily food service to the needy in Cork.

However, Ms Twomey works around the clock seven days a week sourcing accommodation for individuals, dropping food to housebound clients who can't get in to the building and overseeing night classes onsite.

Last year the charity moved to a new premises on James Street in Cork city having previously been based in Little Hanover Street. Cork Penny Dinners was first registered as a charity soup kitchen in 1888 and can trace its history back to the famine. The charity is supported largely by volunteers and provides hot meals from 9am daily, seven days a week.