They came in search of a new life, but many immigrants from eastern Europe are now jobless and homeless. Carl O'Brien reports on the 'new underclass'.
It's just after 6.30am and Miroslave Simon is starting his daily routine. He folds down his blue tent, gathers his only bag of clothes and hides them among some trees in Phoenix Park before setting off on another day of trying to survive.
The first stop is Busáras, a magnet for other jobless eastern Europeans, where he washes and shaves in the public toilets. Next he goes looking for work, heading across the Liffey to the Fás offices shortly after they open, or else tramping for miles from building site to building site in search of work.
In the afternoons or evenings, when he can't find work - he hasn't had regular work for three months - he heads towards the drop-in centres and soup kitchens, where he can see many familiar faces of other eastern European migrants.
There's the Capuchin Friary on Bow Street, which provides a large dinner for free between 2pm and 3pm. In the evenings, at 7.30pm, there's the evangelical group, the Lighthouse Project, on Pearse Street, which holds Bible readings followed by soup, bread and tea. (Simon stays outside during the readings, but queues up for food afterwards.)
Sometimes, he spends his spare time going to the free museums. He's been to all of them. The Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham is his favourite because the exhibits change fortnightly.
And in the late evenings, with the light fading, he finds a newspaper and walks the long journey back to the place he calls home, a sheltered clearing among the trees and shrubs of Phoenix Park.
When he set out to travel from Slovakia to Ireland nine months ago, he never thought things would end up like this. The articles in the newspaper talked about plentiful jobs and wages four or five times above the Slovakian average.
"I came here to work, to earn enough money to build a house at home and marry a Slovak girl," he says. Now, the softly spoken, college-educated man with a passion for Irish literature, finds himself homeless, jobless and almost destitute. He is part of a rough-and-tumble world inhabited by a growing number of migrant workers, many from Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.
The vast majority of the thousands of such workers (more than 230,000 of them registered to work since May 2004, according to Personal Public Service figures) make a success of it. However, significant numbers come unprepared for the cost of living here. Many arrive with just a few hundred euro, the equivalent of a month's wages at home, and find it has disappeared before they've even registered for a PPS number. No one knows exactly how many migrant workers are homeless, but everyone acknowledges it is a growing problem. The Homeless Agency, which co-ordinates homeless services in Dublin, says there has been a "signifcant increase" in job-seekers using food, day and advice services over the last year. Some soup kitchens report numbers doubling or trebling during this period. The Polish embassy estimates up to 600 of its citizens are now in daily contact with services for homeless people.
For many older migrant workers, who learned Russian at school in the days of Soviet domination, the language barrier is too big a hurdle to getting a job.
Almost all those on the street have stories about exploitation and false promises received from employers or rogue job agencies. Because many don't speak English, they are easy to con, either illegally duped out of money by job agencies, or put to work at well below the minimum wage, or hired for work, then sacked without being paid.
When their money for hostels runs out, the more fortunate find beds or floor space in friends' already-crowded flats. Others end up sleeping in Garda stations, doorways or parks around the city.
There is no safety net for such workers. Restrictions on access to social welfare, under the two-year habitual residency condition (HRC), is hitting them particularly hard.
All homeless centres have recorded an increase in demand for services over the past year or so. Many workers who come close to the edge find their way back once they get a new job. But there are growing signs that the more vulnerable are becoming caught in a downward spiral of desperation and long-term homelessness.
Brother Kevin Crowley is growing worried. The Capuchin Day Centre, which he founded in the late 1960s, has traditionally provided hot meals and clothing to Dublin's homeless and needy. Two years ago, about 100 people would turn up at the food centre he runs. Last Saturday, however, a record 390 people formed a queue which snaked up Bow Street. The majority were eastern Europeans.
"Most of them appear and then disappear, only turning up when they run into difficulty or lose their jobs," Crowley says. "There are a lot of students who are still looking for jobs. But there are some who have gone downhill very fast. You see them losing hope, getting involved in street drinking . . . you can see a new underclass beginning to emerge."
The eastern European homeless don't fit the typical profile of homeless people. The vast majority have never experienced homelessness and often have high standards of education. In the queues inside and outside the centre, you can spot them easily: they are generally in clean clothes, with back-packs and folders of CVs and Fás documents.
Among them is Radoslaw Kossowski (55), a former bar-owner from Lublin in Poland. After a frenetic day of heading to recruitment centres, handing out CVs and going to English classes, he has come to the Capuchin centre for a free dinner of meat pie, potatoes and vegetables. He has been looking for work for six weeks, while staying in a hostel dormitory with six others. He hopes to save enough to set up a new business at home.
"I'm very appreciative of the help we get," he says.
Not all those at the centre are desperate or destitute. Adam (29), a shipbuilder, and Piotr (33), a cook, arrived from Poland almost two months ago. They spent their last money on a tent which, they say, is a two-hour walk from the city centre.
"This is my choice to be here," says Adam, who describes himself as a middle-class Pole. "I was renting a flat at home, I had a good job, but this is something new. We can't find work, so we'll wait until the students go after the summer and see what's available then."
Outside the Lighthouse Project Darak (36) from Poland is queuing for a free meal of rolls and soup. He isn't destitute, but he is living on the breadline. He earns €250 a week working as a security guard, €100 of which he sends home to his family. His hostel bed costs around €80. Transport, phone calls and food devour the rest of his wages, so he tries to save every cent he can.
They are the ones in temporary difficulty. However, there is another group of mostly older migrant workers who have been on the streets for longer. Trust, a charity for homeless people, which provides food, showers and basic medical care, see them regularly.
"Just yesterday we had four eastern Europeans in with impetigo [a skin infection, common among the homeless]," says Gerri McAuliffe, Trust's deputy director. "These are the signs of people going downhill very fast.
"We had another man who needed to go to hospital for a skin graft [after developing gangrene in a wound]. When he left, he was given a prescription with a list of medicines to get, but of course he had no money for them."
Trust offers weekly showers for homeless people and provides food, clothes and basic health service. New migrant workers aren't asked why they are homeless, but the despair among many is obvious to see.
The case of Gregor, a good- looking middle-aged man from Poland with curly blonde hair, shocked many of the staff. He was pleasant and polite, but started to turn up drunk occasionally in the mornings. The next day he might return, full of apologies. Then, just last week, he was found dead at the side of a south inner city street.
"They are just like the Irish homeless in the UK 20 years ago," says McAuliffe.
What alarms many working in the homeless sector is the lack of any real action being taken by authorities to tackle the problem while it is still in its relatively early stages.
Martin Mazicki, head of the Office of the Polish Chaplaincy in Ireland, who receives requests for help several times a week from newly homeless Poles, says restrictions on access to welfare need to lifted. "The only thing they seem to be entitled to is a free night in a hostel if they agree to be repatriated back to where they have come from by the Department of Justice. Many don't want to go home because they have nothing there, they have debts or they may have sold everything they have. Most are determined to stay. They don't want a ticket home."
The Homeless Agency, which co-ordinates homeless services across Dublin, is also concerned about the hardship caused by the impact of the HRC. A report it commissioned last year highlighted the absence of any Government department with overall responsibility for the welfare of migrants unable to get access to social welfare. It has written twice this year to relevant Government ministers, departments and the Taoiseach, raising these concerns and recommending action. It is still waiting for a formal response.
Meanwhile, the Department of Social and Family Affairs says the operation of the HRC is being kept under review. It says a recent "clarification" of the HRC means migrants can access supplementary welfare payments but only if they have worked previously. However, homeless groups say there is widespread confusion and ignorance about what migrant workers are entitled to. Those least likely to know what benefits are available are those who need it most.
Groups such as Trust and the Polish Chaplaincy have been calling on the Irish and Polish governments to do more in practical terms to help newly arrived migrants.
Mazicki says the Polish government could help to fund a hostel for newly arrived migrants, provide free English classes or distribute advice about moving to Ireland to work.
It would help people like Miroslave Simon. Homelessness makes him feel beaten by bureaucracy most days. He can't get a proper job because he doesn't have a bank account. He can't get aaccount because he doesn't have a permanent address. He can't get a permanent address unless he gets a proper job that would help him pay a deposit for a flat. As a result, he searches the building sites for casual work. It's the type of work which places him at a greater risk of being duped or exploited. And it's the kind of work which won't entitle him to social welfare if things go wrong again.
Yet, like many of the jobless or homeless migrant workers, he remains relentlessly optimistic.
"I am sure I will find something and begin to earn some money," he says. "Most people coming here do not have a real picture of what life here is like. It's not easy. I know the truth now."
Street life: Jaroslav's story
Jaroslav, a 44-year-old driver from Poland, has just had his only shower of the week and changed into a new set of clothes provided by the homeless charity, Trust. The first night he slept on the streets 15 months ago, he thought it was a one-off. Now, after a year of sleeping rough in parks and Garda stations, his focus is on day-to-day survival rather than looking for a job.
"I try to look for jobs, but it's very difficult when you have no address or way of making contact," he says, holding up a black briefcase containing Revenue forms, PPS documentation, toothpaste and some soap.
Things started out well enough for him when he arrived 15 months ago. He had enough savings to pay for a hostel for about six weeks. Soon enough he found a black-market job as a driver, for €60 a day.
Suddenly it all went downhill. The job lasted five days and much of the money he was owed was never paid, he says. Dozens upon dozens of CVs he circulated went unanswered. When employers did respond, they lost interest quickly when they realised that he had very little English.
He opens a money belt, which contains 50 cent and a collection of creased reference letters.
Jaroslav, who is divorced, says he saves any money he finds to phone his 18-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter. "The last time I spoke to them was on June 1st, which is Children's Day in Poland. It costs around 10 cent a minute, so I had saved up €3 or €4 to speak to them."
He says returning home isn't a possibility right now, as there is no work for him there either. In any case, he adds, the summer isn't too bad a time to be homeless. He's thankful for the help offered by homeless services.
"All I need is to get a normal job, save some money and visit my children."