By The Food Banks Of My Own Lovely Lee.

In Blogby Fedayn25 Comments

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Minister for Social Destruction Joan Burton is to officially open the Bia Food Initiative Food Bank in Cork tomorrow.

Pursuing a policy of austerity leaves a growing number of hungry people in society. In Britain over half a million people rely on food banks. Tomorrow’s event is to promote the Public Private Partnership of a food bank that sources waste food from partner companies for distribution to the poor.

Funding comes from philanthropeurs (seriously, that’s a word…) like JP McManus but there’s also a honey pot of €24m in EU funding being made available to the Dept. of Social Protection which these new poverty businesses are sniffing around.

The likes of Bia Food Initiative and the other food providers are charitable, often entirely volunteer-run and to be applauded but it is the stinking irony of a minister for Social Protection opening a food bank that gets up many people’s noses. Bia’s mission includes “a business-friendly alternative to wasting good food.”

Supplying end of life food means getting an indemnity against prosecution if the poor get sick. The legislation isn’t there yet as it is in America and Italy (Good Samaritans’ Act).

In the video above, Brother Kevin Crowley of the Capuchin Day Centre speaks about “the new poor”. He means those with the outer appearance of doing well but as one woman tells him, she and her two children live in their car.

Here are the figures for Wednesday this week in the centre:

1,850 grocery parcels distributed 800 breakfasts served 500 dinners served 80 to see the Nurse 40 to see the Doctor 20 to see the Dentist 10 to see the Chiropodist

If you’re in Dublin on Saturday evening there is a fundraising cultural night in Smithfield’s Cobblestone bar for the nearby Capuchin centre.

Comments

  1. The Tanaiste opening a food bank in 2014 – let that sink it for a minute….. The country has gone mad. Maybe if the Government werent paying 1.6billion p.a. to pay the Bondholders no one would go hungry tonight. Shame on them.

  2. Giving a conference about economic recovery at the same time as opening a food bank? #irony

  3. While hyenagribusiness exports boom and they dodge tax by the €bn via brass plate box numbers in £ux€mburg…famine economics..welcome home.

  4. I had to double take. How did anyone think this was a good fit ? What class of food bank manager invites a person who has, to be unnecessarily kind, not helped alleviate food poverty ? And what eejit in the ministers office thought, ah yeah, let’s get phoney joany to open a food bank ?

    Can’t imagine this will go well. Ffs

  5. her equivalent in the UK government accused Food Banks of ’emotionally manipulative publicity seeking’ and introduced and intensely cruel system of benefit sanctions that has been a major factor in pushing people to food banks. I have met people who run food banks in the UK and young homeless people that have been hit with benefit sanctions. messed up situation

  6. This has to be a joke, who thought that this was a good idea. Insulting to say the least, women who helped put these people in the position that they are in opens food bank, sickening!

  7. Obviously shit at her job. To paraphrase Bertie, “A failed Minsiter; A failed person.” When used against Higgins, it made no sense, because how can you fail at being a person. But that fucker, Burton? Definitely failed at being a common or decent human being.

  8. Joan Burton is the guest speaker at tonight’s annual Democrats Abroad thanksgiving dinner in the Clarion Hotel :/

  9. Once upon a time, the likes of Connolly died trying to get a form of government that would remove the conditions that mean Food Banks are needed. Tomorrow, we’re more likely to have it presented as a jobs boost for Cork with a lot of potential growth in the sector.

    The ironic death throes of what was once the Irish Labour Party.

  10. Pingback: It Starts Here | Broadsheet.ie

  11. Foodbank Offically Open’s , Is That Another Sick Joke On Her Behalf ?

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