Gardaí had to stop a homeless drop-in centre in Dublin from handing out tickets for food hampers after thousands of people turned up.
The Capuchin Day Centre in Smithfield says it's dealing with unprecedented levels of demand from those struggling.
It says 664 dinners were handed out yesterday, compared to around 500 in normal times.
3,000 tickets were given out for Christmas hampers, which will be distributed next Tuesday morning, after people started queuing from 4 am yesterday morning.
Manager of the centre, Alan Bailey, says the level of need is the worst he's ever witnessed;
"We could see an upsurge in the numbers attending the centre and we have 3,000 hampers ready to give out. So we gave out our tickets yesterday and it got to the stage where the Gardaí had to intervene."
He said they stopped giving out tickets for a time because the area got so busy and there was concern someone could get hurt.
