The team behind a Dublin soup kitchen are shutting down for now because they say the crowds have become far too big to do it safely.
Muslim Sisters of Éire held an emergency meeting this morning.
That's after at least 400 people joined the line for their soup kitchen at the GPO on Friday night.
They say they don't want to risk volunteers or the people they serve being infected with Coronavirus.
Chairperson Lorraine O'Connor says it was a hard decision when there's more demand for their street canteen than ever before.
"Next week we're going to take a step back, and see how the numbers go, then go back in again the week after."
"Now we'll continue to facilitate an outreach programme three nights a week where we'll go in with hot food."
"That's instead of crowds standing in one spot, and crowds coming to that one spot."
"We have to disperse that crowd."
"It's gone impossible to try to control that crowd down there."
"But the demand, the sheer demand."
"It's heart-breaking."
Extremely difficult night. Today we saw the worst queues in all the years we have been . The crowd was agitated and frustrated and we really don’t know how they’d survive without all the soup runs giving out hot food. We had more that 400 meals plus ect..Take care stay safe pic.twitter.com/Rpo4ZGq7Li
— Muslim Sisters of Eire (@Msoe_Dublin) August 7, 2020
'If this virus gets hold of them, it'll kill them.'
Lorraine O'Connor says the virus would be a huge risk to the people who come to them.
"There are vulnerable people and some of them do have addictions."
"They're not in the right frame of mind, very thin, some of them malnourished, sleeping rough."
"You're thinking to yourself, 'If this virus gets hold of them, it'll kill them.'"
"They don't have the immunity."
"So instead of one night a week standing at the GPO we're going to go out three nights a week."
"With all of our gear in cars."
