DISABLED WOMAN FOUND SHIVERING

AT the end of Molesworth Street in Dublin city centre, a vulnerable woman with special needs was getting ready to spend the night sleeping rough as temperatures plummeted to 2C.

Sitting alone and confused last Monday night, the woman, believed to be in her mid-50s, was visibly shaking with the cold as members of Inner City Helping Homeless came to her aid.

The volunteers handed her a cup of tea as they tried to gauge how she ended up in such a distressing situation.

And even though they had many other areas of south Dublin left to cover, they spent more than 30 minutes with the woman until a team from the Dublin Simon Community arrived on the scene.

It was hoped that the charity could provide the woman with a bed for the night, but the best it could do was offer her a sleeping bag.

It also recommended calling the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, but the ICHH group deemed it would not be appropriate for a vulnerable individual to sleep in a hostel with drug addicts.

Soon after the Dublin Simon Community left, additional volunteers linked to the ICHH, who are trained to deal with vulnerable people, arrived to offer support.

Eventually, it was established that the woman ran away from her home in south Dublin where she lived with her elderly mother and brother.

With her consent, the woman agreed to get into an ICHH vehicle where she was transported safely back to her home.

‘It was such a relief to see that this vulnerable member of our society did not have to spend the night on the street or in a hostel,’ said volunteer Pádraig Drummond.

‘It’s hard to imagine that a woman with special needs had to fend for herself during a time when we’re all supposed to look out for one another.

‘But even if she didn’t have a home to go back to, we would have made sure that she had a bed for the night one way or another.’