Allie (12) and Patrick (11) have been sleeping rough for the past three days. They sleep rough "sometimes" and "sometimes we sleep in the hostel with [our] mother".
"We slept back down there last night," says Allie, pointing away towards a laneway behind the Department of Health and Children, in Hawkins Street, Dublin. "Our mother is looking for a job so if we don't get money for the hostel begging and singing, we have to sleep on the streets."
The two agree to talk about themselves after they are offered some lunch in a local coffeeshop. The young woman clearing tables is hesitant about letting us in but agrees once it is pointed out to her that the two children will be customers.
Allie is clearly the talker, asking several times as we chat how many notepad pages have to be filled before the "chat" is over. Patrick shrugs his shoulders most of the time when invited to join in, preferring to study each chip before he eats it.
Their mousy-coloured hair is tousled with sleep and both brother and sister have small, freckle-splashed faces. They are heavily clothed in several layers of jackets and sweaters. Patrick's yellow jacket is stained and soiled; Allie's pink sweater cuffs are filthy and frayed, and both have dirty fingernails and grubby cheeks. Nonetheless, they are attractive children and Allie smiles a "thanks" when told so.
She explains that they used to live in a trailer in Blanchardstown but that she thinks her parents sold it because they needed the money. "It was only small anyway, and all mucky. We were right on the side of the road."
She says they had neither water nor electricity and that just before they left the trailer for hostels, another family pulled a trailer up beside them and her father did not get on with them. Asked how their father died, she says "it was an accident".
Their mother Cathy, they say, "is kind to us". She is "looking for a job" and "comes and gets us later in the day and tells us where we are going. She does that most days anyway."
They make about £5 each a day, she estimates, though Patrick sometimes makes more with his renditions of Boyzone numbers on Grafton Street. "Some people are nice, but some aren't, says Allie. "Some even hit us," Patrick adds. "The police tell us to stop but they don't arrest us."
They aren't particularly looking forward to Christmas "because we don't get anything".
If they could get anything they say they'd like new clothes. When it is pointed out that most children hate getting clothes as presents, Allie pulls on the front of her sweater. "But. . .most children have loads of clothes. This is all we have, is on us."
They might in fact enjoy some computer games, it is suggested, at which both faces come alight. "Yeah," Patrick says earnestly.
They don't go to school because the other children "do laugh at us about our clothes". "We can't read." However, they do eventually want to get work. But how will they work if they cannot read? Allie throws her head back and groans. "Oh we'll get jobs doing floors, mopping or cleaning kitchens," she explains.
Both agree that they would rather live anywhere but between hostels and the street. "The streets do be freezing, really freezing sometimes and there's noise - cars, people shouting," Allie says.
Patrick says he would like to live in a house, though Allie says that if "we saved enough we could buy a caravan. About £5,000 is what we need, so it will be about a few months before we have that."