As far as John (15) is concerned, he is on his own, no one can help him and it's up to him to "get things sorted". Originally from Birmingham, of Irish parents, he has been sleeping rough in Dublin "for about three months".
"I'm looking for my family," he says. It's about 10 o'clock on a Thursday night as we crouch down on a step at the Bank of Ireland in College Green. Pulling a grubby sheet about his small shoulders, he says he is from a Traveller family and his parents had lived in England. His father died six years ago, aged 44, and the family came here, "for him to be buried in Ireland".
"About three months after, my mam wanted to go back to England. I was getting on with her [his mother] then, but after about a year she was going heavy on the drink. She'd go off, come back after an hour, come back after hours and then she was going off for days. My sister, Mary, she's 29, was living here and she came over and took us on."
He came back and lived with a number of his siblings in Ballymun until about two years ago when he went back to see his mother. "I wasn't getting on with her, so I ended up sleeping out or staying with friends or going to hostels. Then I came back to Ireland a few months ago to look for my sister, but some people who knew her said she was gone to Manchester. What could I do?"
Asked whether he had any family here who could give him a place to stay, he said he hadn't. Asked whether he had been to the Garda either for help in contacting his sister or even for an emergency bed, he said there was nothing they could do.
"They can't find her. It's not their problem. I wouldn't go to them for a place to stay. I wouldn't go into care," he says, inhaling on a cigarette. "I sleep at the back of Grafton Street. I used to sleep in front of that hotel there," he goes on, gesturing towards Fleet Street, "but they always move you on really early in the morning."
He says he sleeps in whatever blankets he can find. About two weeks ago his sleeping bag was stolen, though he was given another by "some people". These may have been outreach workers, such as those from the Simon Community and Focus Ireland. This was stolen two days ago.
He got some clean blankets, again from "some people". "I hid them today and when I came back they were gone, too." He found a sheet to afford some protection against the cold.
"It's not so cold tonight. The night before last was rough. That was very cold, and my sleeping bag was wet. When I woke up the bottom of it was gone hard." That Tuesday night, Dublin's temperature fell to minus 3 degrees.
"During the day I go to Focus [Ireland]. You can get a cup of tea for 25p. I go to day centres, get a place to sit down."
He has told staff of his desire to get back to England to find his sister but says: "It's not up to them. What can they do?"
He gets "very lonely, very depressed" and although he says he will find his sister, his priority tonight is to raise £16 for a hostel bed. "I don't want to sleep with just this," he says, pulling on the sheet. "I have £1 now, but I've only been begging for about an hour."